My 'Rise of Nine'
by HarmonyPie714
Summary: So... this is my take on what could happen in the next book in the series, hence the title. Other characters include Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten. Rated T just to be safe. Some Four/Six throughout the story.
1. The Beginning

**A/N: I finished Power of Six about a week ago and really enjoyed it. To pass the time between now and the release of Rise of Nine, I decided to write my version of what could happen. I hope you enjoy it- if you do, or even if you don't, please leave a review for me.**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not have any Legacies, I am not an Elder of Lorien, and I am not Pittacus Lore. (not that my writing is good enough for anyone to confuse us)**

_Sam is sitting in his cell, staring at the wall. Two Mogadorians approach, holding a table between them. They punch a code into the wall and the force-field disappears. Sam stands up momentarily, but sits down when he sees the gun one of them is pointing at him. The lead Mogadorian steps away from the table, revealing an array of what can only be instruments of torture. He barks at Sam, who stands up. His arms and legs are taped to the wall, and he makes no move to resist. The Mogadorian picks up a knife and holds it to Sam's face._

"_Where is Four?" he demands._

_Sam says nothing. The knife slashes across his face, opening a gash in his cheek._

"_Where is he?" yells the Mogadorian._

_Sam is bleeding badly, sweat running down his brow and mixing with his blood. Despite the pain he must be in, when he speaks it is with defiance._

"_I'll never tell you."_

_The knife descends again, and everything goes red. _

My eyes snap open.

"How long was I out?"

"About an hour and a half." replies Nine, without taking his eyes from the road. I'm glad he's the one driving- I really needed to sleep. I look out the window and see snow everywhere. I turn to look at him "We're in Pennsylvania, heading north like you said." he says, answering my unspoken question.

"We need to go back," I say, "We need to go back and get Sam."

Nine sighs. This isn't the first time I've said this. When he speaks, however, it is in a surprisingly understanding voice.

"Look, Four, we don't have the firepower to go back in there. We're both powerful, but neither of us has our Master Legacies, and we'd have to fight thousands of Mogs in their home territory." He takes a deep breath and continues. "Besides, you have to realize something, Four. The only people who matter now are the six of us. You're next in line to be killed, and you can't- we can't afford you putting yourself in unnecessary danger. I know it's tough, but that's what my Cèpan told me. They captured us, they tortured him but he told me to continue the fight, that he didn't matter. The fate of our people is in our hands. Not Sam's, not anyone else's. It is up to what is left of the Garde to save Lorien."

He turns and looks at me, but I've long since tuned him out. He turns back to the road and keeps driving. I close my eyes, hoping for a sleep without premonitions. Sleep eludes me, but images fill my head nonetheless. This time they're happier ones.

_I see Six doing laps in the pool, Bernie Kosar alongside her. I see us training in the backyard, me suspended four feet over the pool. Then I see us after the walk in Florida, only this time the house doesn't erupt in flames. I stay in that moment for a while, enjoying it, and then I reluctantly allow my mind to wander again. This time it's Sam who I see, sitting next to me in the car._

"_I see you guys flirting all the time, literally, all the time, in front of me. You know I like her, and you still do it. You still don't care."_

_I see myself say the same words I am thinking._

"_I do care. I do care that you like her."_

_I feel bad for Sam. I really do. I just can't help myself when I'm around Six._

I open my eyes. Nine is passed out on the seat beside me. I look around frantically. I can't see any Mogadorians, but I light up my hands nonetheless. Nobody's there. I breathe a sigh of relief and shake Nine awake.

"Nine! Nine!"

He opens his eyes groggily.

"What is it?"

"What do you think it is? You can't just fall asleep like that without letting me know! What if the Mogadorians had found us? They would have killed both of us easily. One of us always needs to be awake so we can keep an eye out for Mogs!"

"Sorry. I was just really tired." he says with a yawn

I roll my eyes. The guy who walks on ceilings and enjoys fighting for his life is tired. "That's fine, but if you need to sleep, wake me up!"

"I tried. It was like you were in a trance or something. I tried to stay awake until you snapped out of it but I couldn't."

Oops. I feel a bit guilty about staying in those moments for so long. I shouldn't have left Nine to make sure we were okay. Still though, I assumed I could be woken up if it was necessary. I'll need to remember that for the future.

"Okay. Do you want me to drive? We need to get to a motel or something. It's way too dangerous for us to be out in the open like this."

"Sure."

We switch seats and I start driving. For some reason driving has always relaxed me. I feel more free when I'm driving, like the Mogadorians disappear for a couple moments. Of course, walks are good for that too. Tonight though, I just want to find a place where we can sleep for the night. Thankfully, I spot a motel almost immediately. I pull into the parking lot and quickly look around. There are a couple cars, but thankfully no figures lurking in the shadows. I know I've been really jumpy lately, but we need to stay safe. The lobby is nearly empty as we walk up to the desk. The guy running the room reservations is too busy drinking to question my ID and gives us a room. We both fall asleep almost immediately.

_I'm walking on Lorien as it was the day before the attack. Everything is lush and green, and I can hear birds chirping in the trees. I walk over a hill and see somebody standing there. They aren't human._


	2. The Eighth of Nine

**A/N: Disclaimer in Chapter One. In case you couldn't tell, this chapter is told from Eight's point of view. Yes, I said Eight's. There's a reason we haven't heard anything from her. Anyway, same deal as before. If you enjoy this, or even if you don't, please let me know. Thanks to everybody who has already reviewed. By the way, this won't be my usual update frequency. I already had the second chapter written, so I decided to put it up today.  
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My name is Rena. I have blonde hair, brown eyes and crowds of guys following me wherever I go. Which is actually annoying when you're a person like me. Perhaps you would understand me more if you knew my other name. You can call me Eight. I know- I hate my parents for giving me a number instead of a name. Just kidding. Eight isn't my real name- I don't know what my real name is, or even who my real parents are. Eight is my number- I am the Eighth of the Loric Nine. There. Now you know who I really am. My Cèpan and me were doing a pretty good job of evading the Mogadorians until a couple months ago. They caught up with us in Leicester, England. We were unprepared for a fight. We were both exhausted, and my Legacies were no use in combat. I was captured, but my Cèpan managed to escape. Strictly speaking she should have stayed with me, but at least this way there's somebody out there who knows what happened to me. The Mogs tried to kill me, but of course that hurt them a lot more than it hurt me. Finally they gave up and sent me here to this prison inside a mountain in West Virginia. I've been stuck here since, bored out of my mind, until yesterday. There was a prison break yesterday. The first one in the time I've been here. I've been preparing myself in case something like that happened, but I wasn't ready. Two guys in their teens broke in here, and at least one of them was definitely Loric. It was a pretty stupid idea for them to come in here, but at least the Loric one made it back out. They found Nine, and he helped the Loric kid escape. Nine also paved the way for my own escape some time soon. The Mogs placed the other kid, the one they captured, in the cell to my right. If he's a Loric ally then I should take him with me when I escape. I place my palm on the wall between my cell and his and it turns transparent. The kid there looks about my age and he's wearing a NASA t-shirt. It's definitely him. I look at his leg, but he has no scars. He's not Loric, then. Could he be a spy? Or was he actually trying to help the other kid? I sigh. There's only one way to find out.

"Hey, newbie!" I say, my voice carrying easily through the wall.

"What?" he says, looking around for the source of the voice.

"To your left!" I say exasperatedly.

He turns to his left and sees me. His eyes travel instantly to my leg, and the scars there.

"What number are you?" he asks. He certainly seems inquisitive. I place a mental tick in the spy column.

"I saw you first, I ask the questions. You don't have a number, so who are you?"

"My name's Sam. I'm a friend of Four."

"How do I know you're telling the truth? Four isn't here to vouch for you." I make a mental note that Four was the kid who broke in here and is now with Nine.

"Um... well, you don't." he admits. He thinks for a while and then says, "Why don't you ask me something that only someone who knows Four would know?"

That's actually a good idea; I should have thought of that myself. The only problem is that I don't know Four either. I decide to ask him something that only a friend of one of the Garde would know.

"All right then, Sam. If you can answer this correctly I'll know I can trust you. When does a Garde receive his inheritance from his Cèpan?"

He answers without hesitation. "After the Garde develops his first Legacy."

I smile. "Nice to meet you, Sam. I'm Eight. So, that was you and Four who broke in here yesterday?"

"Yea. Well, mostly Four- he killed most of the Mogs."

"So then why did you guys decide to spring Nine and not me?"

"Sorry," he says sheepishly. "We didn't know you were here."

"Fair enough. I'm planning to escape myself anyways. Care to join me?"

There. I said it. If the Mogs don't come and kill us now, we'll know they haven't bugged the cells.

"I'd love to, but I don't think we'd be able to pull it off." he replies. "It took me, Four, some Xitharis, two machine guns, flaming green lava and a lot of luck just to get in here. I think it'd take an army to get out. Besides," he says, gesturing to the force-field, "I'm not immune to electricity, and if you were, you probably would've escaped by now."

He knows what he's talking about. Escape from here is almost impossible, unless you have the right equipment. I'm glad I do.

"True. But I've been working on an escape for a long time, and yesterday I finally got what I needed."

"What is it?"

"I assume you've heard of an EMP?" He nods. "Well this is a Loric EMP. It's smaller, detonates quicker, and has a two-mile range." I say, showing him the green crystal in my hand.

"But how did you get it?"

"It was in Nine's Chest. On his way out yesterday he tossed it to me. He knew he didn't have time to rescue me, but he made sure I'd be able to get out. That'll get us past the force-fields, and once we do I've got another secret weapon."

"What?"

"You."

"Huh?"

"Have you ever wanted to be able to move objects with your mind?"

"Yea, but I'll never be able to. I mean, even if you had some Xitharis with you it wouldn't work on me."

This kid knows a lot, even for a Loric ally; he must have been close to Four.

"It's a good thing then that I'm more powerful than a little yellow piece of rock. One of my Legacies is called Transference. Nine has it too. It allows me to temporarily transfer one of my Legacies to another person. Even if they aren't Loric."

"Sweet."

"Your telekinesis, my Legacies, and the fact that so many Mogs were killed yesterday means that we should be able to make it all the way out."

I add mentally, _"Of course, if we don't it'll be the last thing we ever do." _I don't voice this aloud though, and Sam seems optimistic.

"So when do we pull off our great escape?"

"Tomorrow. You'll know when it's started."

I place my palm back on the wall, turning it back to opaque and ending the conversation. To be honest, I pretended to be far more optimistic than I am. Nine is way more powerful than me, which is probably the only reason he escaped. We need to escape too though, and as soon as possible. The charm was broken when me and Nine were put in the same prison. This means they could kill me any time they want. My only hope is that we escape before they realize. We may only have a 25% chance of making out, but if we don't try I'm going to die for certain. I feel bad for not telling Sam that we'll probably fail. He could die in a fight that isn't his trying to escape because of me. I banish those thoughts. What matters now is the survival of the Garde. Escape gives me the best chance to survive and save our planet. I close my eyes. I need some sleep before we make a break for it.


	3. Dream Walker

**A/N: Disclaimer in Chapter One. So this is the third installment of my work. A special note for this chapter: the numbers in bold refer to the person who's point of view that section is written in. Since there are two different ones in this chapter, I figured this would make things easier. Also, if you are confused by the second half of Six's monologue, please PM me so I can explain- it sounded a lot clearer in my head and it might not have transferred that well to paper. As before, if you enjoy, or even if you don't, please let me know what you think.**

**Six:** The plane left about four hours ago from Valencia airport. We grabbed the first one we could find, even though John and Sam won't be expecting me for about two weeks. Crayton says it's urgent we gather all the Garde in one place, but he won't say why. Normally I'd be suspicious, but both Marina and Ella say he can be trusted. They're both really nice, and Marina's healing legacy hurts a lot less than a healing stone. She's reading a book to my left, by the window, and Ella is watching some show on the in-flight entertainment system. Crayton is sitting across the aisle, sleeping. I'm finally starting to feel that the tide of this war is changing, like the Mogadorians are starting to fear us. It is nice to think that soon we could be the hunters instead of the hunted. From what Crayton said though, things could get a lot tougher. Apparently Setrákus Ra, the leader of the Mogadorians is coming, and he may even already be here. From the way Crayton described him, I think he's not just a politician but an incredibly strong warrior. Nothing we can't handle though. I mean, we just defeated an army of hundreds of Mogadorians, dozens of kraul and a handful of piken. Setrákus Ra may be powerful, but surely not more so than an entire army.

Once we meet up with John and Sam, we'll have Crayton, Ella, Sam, Seven, me and John all in one place. To the best of my knowledge it will be the largest collection of Garde in one place since the destruction of Lorien. It'll be time to give the Mogadorians what they've been dishing out to us for so long. There's only one thing that worries me, and it's John. Not that he won't show up or that he won't fight well- he's probably the second-most reliable person I know. I'm worried that he might find out that I lied to him. Well, I didn't really lie to him; I just kind of… stretched the truth a little bit. When I told him that Katarina had told me about multiple loves on Lorien, I wasn't really lying…much. Okay, I lied to him. For his own good. Or for my good, anyway. What Katarina had told me was more about how she thought she was in love multiple times than that she was in love more than once. Loric love is indeed absolute. What Katarina said was that the Loric are often very bad at recognizing when they are in love. So technically I should have told John that he probably wasn't actually in love with Sarah because Sarah was a human and really John can do much better anyway. I just figured it would be easier to tell him that he can love more than one person. I mean, if I told him he wasn't actually in love with her he'd probably accuse me of trying to break up him and her for my own selfish desires. Which I'd never do. I mean, I lied to him because it's far more practical for him to love a Loric girl than a human. I just hope when he finds out, and I'm sure somehow he will, he'll understand that I lied to him for his own good. Didn't I?

**Four:** _As I get closer, I realize that the person definitely isn't a Mogadorian. I haven't met many Mogadorians with sleek blonde hair and chocolate-brown eyes. Oh yeah, and three scars on their left leg. She must be either Five or Eight. _

"_Who are you?" she asks._

_Since she's obviously one of us, I tell her._

"_I'm Four. Who are you?"_

"_I'm Eight." I'm not surprised. "What's going on?"_

"_To be honest, I'm not sure. I know I had just fallen asleep."_

"_Me too."_

"_So… to take a very wild and possibly incorrect guess then, we're um… somehow communicating in our dreams?"_

"_This is so weird. Where were you when you fell asleep?"_

"_A motel somewhere in Pennsylvania. You?"_

"_A Mogadorian prison in West Virginia."_

"_I was one of the kids who broke in there. I'm sorry we didn't see you." _

_If she's in the same prison, maybe she's seen Sam. It's worth a try, at least. _

"_By any chance is there a kid there wearing a NASA t-shirt, about our age?"_

"_Do you mean Sam?"_

"_H-How do you know him?"_

"_He's in the cell next to mine."_

_At least he's still alive. After that dream I had yesterday I was worried they might have killed him. If we can rescue him then we'll be able to meet up with Six when the two weeks are up. I just hope Sam still has the sheet of paper with the address on it. _

"_Listen. We were with Six until a couple days ago when she went to Spain to make sure Seven was okay. She gave Sam an address for us to meet her at in two weeks. Can you make sure he still has that?"_

_Eight seems to ignore most of what I said. _

"_I'm sure he does. By the way, we're planning an escape of our own tomorrow. We might not make it, but if we do should we meet you guys somewhere?"_

_That's a good idea. I can't fly, so I try to think of places that are easily accessible by car from both Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The first one that comes to mind is Waynesburg, near the border of the two states. Henri considered taking us there once, he but decided it was too close to Pittsburgh. _

"_Do you know where Waynesburg is?" I ask._

"_Kind of."_

"_Could you meet us there by 7 p.m tomorrow?"_

"_If we make it out we can get there no problem. Where exactly should we meet you?"_

"_We'll be just outside the courthouse."_

"_Got it. One last thing. Is this my Legacy or yours?"_

_I shrug. "Who knows?" _

I open my eyes. The clock beside me reads 4:06- way too early. Then it his me- the memory of my dream, talking to Eight. Was that real? I think so, but…

"Nine! Nine!"

His snoring continues. Finally I walk over and shake him awake

"What is it?" he says groggily. "Is it your personal mission in life to stop me from getting any sleep?"

"Sorry. I just had a quick question. When you were in that prison, was Eight there as well?"

"Yea."

"Blonde hair, brown eyes?"

"Yea. How do you know all this stuff?"

I can barely believe it. My dream must have been real! That means we need to get to Waynesburg as soon as possible.

"How far are we from Waynesburg?"

Nine shrugs. "I'm not sure exactly where we are, so I can't say for certain. I'd guess it's at most about one, two hours drive, though. Seriously, how did you figure all this stuff out?

"I was dreaming I was on Lorien as it was the day before attack, and I saw this person approaching me. I asked her who she was, and she said she was Eight. She had the scars, so I believed her. She said that her and Sam were planning an escape tomorrow. We agreed to meet up by the courthouse in Waynesburg at 7 p.m three days from now."

"In that case, chill, dude. We could make it there on time if we walked it. Just relax and let me sleep."

With that, he falls asleep again. I pace the room, knowing sleep won't find me. With nothing better to do, I walk over to my Chest. I open it, and look again through its contents. I rake out the velvet bag, and pick up the seven spheres. I toss them up in the air and look for Lorien. I find it immediately- a planet covered in grey and ash. I look in the very centre and find the pulsing blue light that Henri told me represented hope. It is sad that hope may be all that we have left. Yet as I watch it, the light at the centre of Lorien pulses strongly, and grows slightly bigger. It is so slight that had I not seen it happen I probably would never have noticed it. The only explanation I can think of for it is that Lorien is slowly rebuilding itself; growing stronger. I gather up the orbs and place them back in the bag. I glance at the clock. It is still way too early to do anything. I place the bag back in the chest and close it. That's when I notice it. A tiny little golden dot on the side of the Chest. I pick at it with my fingernail, and to my surprise it comes off easily. It is no bigger than a pea, and I groan as I realize what it is. The Mogs must have put them on the Chests too, just in case we somehow managed to recover them. I sprint to the other side of the room and shake Nine awake for the second time in the last hour.

"You had better have a really good reason for waking me up."

"Don't worry, I do. I think I found a tracking device on my Chest. There's probably one on yours too. They could be here any minute now."

Nine's eyes snap open- he is suddenly on full alert. He runs over to his Chest and comes back with a dot in his hand as well.

"What do we do now?" he asks.

"We leave the trackers here, grab our stuff and get out of here as soon as we can."

We grab our stuff and race out to the car. I load the Chests in the back while Nine starts the engine. I look back and see a crowd of Mogadorians approaching the motel. I can't help but smile, at least until the see us. I yell to Nine to keep going, but he looks back as soon as I do. He takes his hand off the wheel and flicks it- the entire front line of Mogadorians is thrown into the ones behind them. They collapse in disarray, but then a van speeds around the corner behind us. Nine throws it into the woods but another one is right behind it.

"We need to get going now!" I yell. "We can't defeat all of them."

Nine pays me no attention.

"We need to go!"

I'm screaming now, and Nine reluctantly turns back towards the road and starts driving. That's when a bullet sails about six inches from my head. I signal Nine to keep driving while I turn to face our pursuers. I activate my Lumen and consciously focus it into a thin beam, like a laser. I smile. It's the first time I've tried this since I set that paper on fire back in the apartment. Now I just need to make sure I don't miss. I focus my hands on the gas tanks of the vehicles behind us, and they almost immediately go up in flames. I do this to the ones behind them until all 12 of them are burning at the side of the road. A couple of Mogadorians chase after us on foot but we soon leave them behind.

**A/N: The event with the fire I refer to in the final paragraph does occur in Power of Six.** **I can't recall exactly where, but it's there and I took it as inspiration for John's new ability.**


	4. The Stormbringer

**A/N: Disclaimer in Chapter One. This is Installment #4; the numbers in bold once again refer to the member of the Garde you are observing the story through. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to PM me. Also, if you enjoyed, or even if you didn't enjoy this, please leave a review to let me know. Reviews mean a lot to me because I don't feel like I'm writing for a non-existent audience. I know you guys are out there, so please take the time to review. Without further ado...  
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**Eight: **Sam gets up slowly.

"Um… a Mog guard?"

"When I said you'd never guess, that wasn't an invitation to try to prove me wrong."

"Fair enough. So who were you talking to?"

"It was in a dream, actually. What does Four look like?"

He looks a little surprised, but rattles off a list of characteristics that perfectly matches the guy in my dream.

"I saw him in my dream. He said that he and Nine were somewhere in Pennsylvania. I told them about the escape attempt, and we agreed to meet in Waynesburg at 7 p.m tonight if all goes well. By the way, he said something about Six giving you an address. He wanted to make sure that you still had it."

"I've got it right here," he says, pulling it out of his pocket.

"Good. Also, I just wanted to make sure we both know exactly how this is going to unfold. Having the address and meeting up with them won't matter if we die trying to get out of this place."

Sam nods. He's trying to keep a brave face, but the fear shows in his eyes. I can't blame him for being scared. To his credit, though, he's never questioned that this escape is a risk we need to take. I begin to talk him through the plan.

"When I smash the EMP, it'll take effect immediately. It'll shut down these force fields, all the security systems, and the guard's guns. It should last a couple hours, and if we're still here then, it's too late anyway. The downside of using it is that as soon as it activates, every Mogadorian in this place will know something's going on. Because of that we're going to need to move quickly. Once we get out, we'll need to run to find a place where we can steal a car. Waynesburg isn't far from here, but Four and Nine are expecting us at 7, and walking or even running won't get us there on time. I don't know about Four, but Nine's definitely powerful enough to keep us safe."

"You seem to talk about Nine a lot. Are you and him—"

"Oh. No. Not at all."

I interrupt Sam before he can finish his sentence, to make it seem like I never even considered it. To be honest, I'd kind of gone through a bit of a Nine phase while I'd been stuck here, but I'm over that now.

"I mean, he's a nice guy and everything, but he's just a little… well, devil-may care for me. He's always rushing into danger, and well, he's almost a little bloodthirsty at times."

Okay, I might have been exaggerating a little. I had been attracted to him for a month or so, which, trust me, was easy to do. And with the whole bloodthirsty thing, he really just wanted to get revenge on the Mogs for what they had made him go through, which I can understand. I change the subject.

"So are you looking forward to moving objects with your mind?"

Sam smiles and nods. It must have been tough for him, watching one of his friends turn into a superhero. He must have spent so much time watching Four, wishing he could do all the stuff Four could. I'm about to continue when I see a pair of Mogadorians rounding the corner. I quickly turn the wall back to opaque. To my surprise they are coming towards my cell. One punches a code into a keypad, and the force field disappears. I think briefly about making a run for it but decide against it when I see the large gun that is being pointed at me.

"Hello, Eight," says the lead Mogadorian in a raspy voice, "It must have been nice these last couple years, knowing that there were seven people, then six, then five, even now four who bound you to life. I'm afraid those four don't matter anymore for you. You see, when we placed you and Nine in this prison together, the charm that annoying Elder placed on you was broken."  
>They know. They know, and that means I might have only seconds to live unless I act. I hope Sam's ready.<p>

"We can kill you in any order we want, and since you're already here, we figured we'd start with you. Goodbye, Number Eight."

I bring my hand from behind my back and smash the crystal on the ground. The trigger of the gun is pulled but nothing happens. I take advantage of the momentary confusion to slam my foot into the guard's face. Before he recovers I use telekinesis to slam the two guards together and throw them against the wall. They slump to the ground, unconscious. I walk over to the cell next to me and see Sam. That's when the lights go out. I can't believe I forgot about that. This could be a little bit tougher than I thought.

"Eight?"

"I'm right here."

"I don't suppose you can see in the dark?"

"Unfortunately not."

I finally find his hand and grab it. I focus on my telekinesis until I feel the electricity travel own my arm. Sam shakes as it enters his body.

"There," I say, "Use that to throw anything that's moving into a wall."

"Actually, maybe you should focus on doing that. I have a photographic memory, so I know exactly the way out of this place.

"Sounds good."

We start running. The combination of no lights and no guns makes almost all of our escape very easy. Sam stops after about five minutes.

"What is it?"

"The exit's right around that corner," he says, "But it's going to be guarded heavily, especially because they suspect something. They won't have guns, but by now they will have gotten swords. We need to run as fast as we can through that tunnel. Ready?"  
>I nod. Sam focuses for a second, and then starts running. I can tell immediately that we're not going to make it. There are about twenty Mogadorians there, silhouetted by the light from the exit, and all of them are holding swords. We keep running. We make it past about half of them before they notice us. Out of the corner of my eye I see a sword swing down toward my neck. I try to duck, but I am too late. The sword is inches from me when it stops as if it hit a barrier. There is a flash of blue sparks and the Mogadorian recoils in surprise. I keep running, and many other swords have the same thing happen to them. I throw the two guards in front of the exit itself back the way we came, where they crash into about five others, probably reinforcements. Finally, I taste fresh air.<p>

We run for about four or five minutes before I turn to Sam and ask, "Why didn't the swords hit me? Was that something you did?"

He nods, breathing heavily. "Simple… application of… teleki—"

He slumps to the ground, unconscious. I quickly bind him to the air above me and keep running. I look up after about ten seconds- Sam is still there. I'm running over 50 kilometers an hour now, and it isn't long before a city comes in to view.

**Six: **I would've thought getting our Chests through security would've been tough, but Crayton showed us a feature that makes them look like ordinary luggage. We grab a taxi from the airport, headed for the Embassy Suites hotel. We get two rooms- I'm with Marina and Crayton's with Ella. Crayton originally wanted to find Four and Nine tonight, but on the plane over we convinced him to let us rest for a night first. We order room service and then crash for the night.

I wake up and walk into the shared living room where everyone is sitting. While we're eating breakfast Crayton decides we should all get to know each other better. We go around the table, reciting our number, Earth name and Legacies.

Ella goes first, saying, "I'm Number Ten, my Earth name is Ella, and my only Legacy so far is that I can change my age at will."

She demonstrates, alternating between seven and ten years old.

I go next, saying, "I'm Number Six, my Earth name is Maren-Elizabeth, but don't call me that, and my Legacies are invisibility and control over the elements and weather."

Marina finishes with, "I'm Number Seven, my Earth name is Marina, and my Legacies are that I can see in the dark, breathe underwater and heal injuries."

"I'm Crayton. I'm Ella's unofficial Cèpan, and I have something important for each of you."

He reaches into his bag and pulls out a series of envelopes, giving one to each of us and putting the others back in the bag. 'Six' is written on the front of mine. I open it up and read the letter inside.

_Six,_

_This was a difficult letter to write; because at the time you are reading this I will be dead. As you know, you are one of the ten, possibly less, surviving members of the Garde. I wish to impress upon you once more the urgency of your mission- to develop your Legacies, defeat the Mogadorians and repopulate Lorien. The fate of both the Loric and human races are in your hands. If you fail- if the Mogadorians destroy all of you before your return to Lorien then we have truly lost this war. By now, you may or may not know that the ten of you are destined to replace us as Elders of Lorien. Specifically, your destiny is to take my place on the Council. As you are my replacement, it may aid you to know a little bit about me. Much like you, I started to develop my Legacies at an unusually young age. In summation, they are telekinesis, invisibility and control of weather and the elements. While that is a small number of Legacies for a Garde to have, they are among the most powerful. By now, you likely recognize all of these Legacies. If not, know that you will eventually possess all of them. While I lived, I was one of the most powerful and stealthy of the Elders. Some accused me of disloyalty, but my heart never wavered from the cause. Never forget who and what you are fighting for. The final thing you need to know regards your inheritance. While obviously your individual inheritance is unique, there are several items that every Garde is given. The red crystal is a communicator. While you use it, anybody using another crystal will be able to hear your voice, no matter where they are. The yellow stone is called Xitharis; when charged it will allow you to temporarily transfer one of your Legacies to another Garde. You will also find an black, oval crystal inside, which is a healing crystal. It will heal many injuries, but do not use it on serious wounds, as the pain of healing is twice that of the injury. It can be fatal if not used properly. Finally, you will find a dagger with a diamond blade. Treat it extremely carefully. It was made for your hand and cannot be used by anybody but you. It is especially useful when fighting at close range with Mogadorians, as it can break their swords. Guard your inheritance with your life. While the Mogadorians cannot use it, it will aid you greatly on your mission. Remember your cause, and you shall prevail. The people of Lorien are relying on you, Six._

_Best of luck,_

_Elder Tempus Arcesso_

"_The Stormbringer"_


	5. The Magical Mystery Chest

**A/N: I am incredibly sorry for not updating sooner. School has kicked back in for me, and I have an exam coming up and... well, I'm finally back with Chapter Five. There's only one PoV here, which makes it a bit shorter than what you may be used to. Thanks to everybody who took the time to review- I encourage anyone who hasn't to take the time, because it will help me improve my writing. Disclaimer is in Chapter One, and I hope you enjoy. **

**Four: **We've been driving for about an hour when I notice a red glow coming from the trunk.

"Um… Nine?" I say, "Is it just me or is the trunk glowing?"

He looks back for a moment and immediately turns into a service centre off of the highway. There aren't any other cars. He runs out, grabs my Chest out of the trunk and brings it back into the car.

"Open it."

I place my hand on the lock and it melts. I open it up and see a red crystal glowing. I turn to Nine.

"What is that?" I ask.

"It's a communicator. One of the Garde is trying to communicate with you. "

I reach out to touch it but he stops me.

"Be careful. One of the Garde activated it, but it might not have been willingly. There's no way to tell if there are Mogadorians listening to every word you say."

I nod and pick up the crystal. An unfamiliar male voice answers.

"Hello?"

"Who is this?" I ask.

"My name is Crayton. I'm the Cèpan of Number Ten. You're Four?"

Number Ten? There is no Number Ten. Nine of us came here, and now six are left. Unless… Well, I guess it's possible. There was a baby on the ship all of the Chimaera were on. Could he or she have been Ten? Maybe…

"It's possible," says Nine, "I didn't know there was a ship, but if another Loric kid came here, and brought Chimaera with them, they could be Ten. I would hear this guy out."

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

"Just now. You mentioned the ship with the baby and the Chimaera on it and you were wondering if the baby could be Ten."

"I never said that. How did you know what I was thinking?"

"I… don't know. Weird."

Crayton has been silent throughout my conversation with Nine. I decide to answer him.

"Yea, I'm Four. I don't suppose you would mind explaining why I should believe that there is a Ten?"

"It's a long story. We came here on another ship after yours left, with lots of Chimaera on it."

"Why should I believe that?"

"I'm here with Six, Seven and Ten. They'll all back up my story."

"Fine. Could I talk to one of them then?"

"Sure. Who?"

"Six."

There is silence for a couple seconds and then Six answers.

"Hello?"

It fills me with relief to hear her voice again. She's okay. She's still alive. All of us are still alive. And then a pang of guilt rushes through me. Sam. Sam's stuck in a Mogadorian prison, probably being tortured. And there's nothing I can do about it.

"Are you okay, Six?"

"Yea, I'm fine. Did you and Sam manage to recover the Chests?"

"Yea, I've got them here. And we found someone else too. Nine."

"Nine? That's great! Where's Sam?"

"Um… Sam's not here at the moment."

"Where is he?"

I just don't have the heart to tell her what happened to him. I know I should, but…

"He's out scouting."

"All by himself? Shouldn't either you or Nine be with him?"

"Um.. well, we volunteered, but he said he was fine by himself."

"How was Spain? Did you manage to save Seven?"

"With a little help from a couple people, yea. She's fine."

I pause for a second, and then remember the second reason I wanted to speak to Six.

"Is there really a Number Ten?"

"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't met her, but she's definitely Loric."

"And Crayton is her Cèpan? Can he be trusted?"

"He's definitely her Cèpan, and he's done nothing to give any of us reason not to trust him."

"Thanks. Could I talk to him again?"

"Sure. See you soon!"

"So do you trust me now?" asked Crayton as he came back on the line.

"Yep. What was the reason you called me?"

"We need to meet up soon. All of the Garde. Where are you guys?"

"We're somewhere off a highway in Pennsylvania. Where are you?"

"We're in West Virginia. Is there a place that would be convenient for us to meet you?"

"Sure. How soon can you get to Waynesburg?"

"Waynesburg? 9, maybe."

"Meet us there in front of the courthouse at nine o'clock. If you aren't there we'll be there at the same time in the morning."

"We'll be there."

I 'hang up' by putting the crystal back in the Chest.

"You didn't tell me you were a mind-reader," I say, turning to face Nine.

"I'm not. Maybe I'm just getting it now."

We turn back on to the road and keep driving. I check my watch- it's 4:45. It isn't long before I see a sign that says 'Waynesburg – 9.25 miles'.

"We're going to be early," I say, "And I don't want to be standing in front of the courthouse for two hours."

"Well then, why don't we find a place to stay, grab some room service, and then I can teach you about your inheritance."

"My inheritance? What would you know about it?"

'Obviously there are some unique items that your parents would have left you, but all the Garde get some of the same items. Judging from the fact that you had no clue you even had a communicator, I'd guess you know next to nothing about what's in your Chest. I'd be happy to tell you what's what, unless you'd rather die because you don't know what a healing stone looks like."

Nine's right. It's times like this that I wish Henri had had more time to teach me before he died.

"For your information, I know what a healing stone looks like." Nine scowls, so I quickly add, "But I'll accept your offer anyway."

It takes us about ten minutes to enter the city limits of Waynesburg. Thankfully there's a hotel just across from the courthouse. It's a bit run-down, but it's both inconspicuous and convenient. The only problem is that I doubt they have room service.

"Well?" Nine asks after we unpack what little we have.

"Well what?"

"Are you finally ready to learn what all those things inside your Chest are? I still can't believe you have no clue what you have. To be honest, I'm surprised you've lasted this long wi—"

"Okay, I get the point. Just tell me what all this stuff is."

I walk over to the table with our Chests on it and open mine. Nine does the same. I slowly take out the items inside: my dagger, the Xitharis, the healing stone, the communicator, the velvet bag holding the planets, the towel holding that weird cactus thing, the Loralite pendant and 5 or 6 other items I know nothing about.

"So which of these do you not understand?"

I indicate the pendant, the towel and the other items I am unfamiliar with. Nine picks up the towel and unwraps the 'radioactive cactus'.

"Why is this all wrapped up like this?" he asks.

"Pick it up and find out for yourself."

He reaches out tentatively and stops.

"Is it dangerous?"

"Don't be a wuss."

He picks it up and drops it again almost immediately.

"What the heck was that?"

"I've nicknamed it the radioactive cactus. Weird, isn't it."

"Well, I have no clue what that is."

He moves to the next item, the pendant.

"Well, this is Loralite. As for what it does, I have no clue."

He doesn't seem to know anything about the other items either.

"You have a lot of stuff I've never seen or even heard about before. Sorry I wasn't of more help."

"You weren't of any at all," I mutter under my breath. "So what's in your magical mystery Chest?"

"Well, you've seen the x-ray stone, I've used up my EMP, so that just leaves my grenade and my gun. And all the other common items, of course."

"You must have had a combative family. Why didn't you use the gun during the escape?"

"I don't like to. It's… unelegant. If I ever truly need to though, I will."

We eat at the hotel restaurant, which is a restaurant in the loosest sense of the word and then head over to the courthouse. My watch reads 6:45. Within a couple minutes I see two people approaching us.

**A/N: To anyone who is currently thinking: "Well, that was boring.", this is a transition chapter from Part One (the separate Garde scattered all over the place) to Part Two, which involves most of them working together. Stay tuned for Chapter Six.**


	6. Le Rendezvous

**A/N: Disclaimer in Chapter One. So this is Chapter Six, which marks the bridge between Parts One and Two of this story. The Garde are joining forces now, and they are ready for whatever the Mogadorians can throw at them. Thanks again to everybody who has reviewed, although if you do have an account, please sign in before leaving a review because then I can respond to it answering your question etc. Reviews help my diligence as a writer, so please keep them coming. Now, I am proud to present... Chapter Six. Enjoy.  
><strong>

**Eight:**

Great. He's unconscious.

"Sam!"

I grab his arm and shake it.

"Sam! Wake up!"

He's still out cold. Whatever he did back in the cave must have exhausted him. I look up at the sky. The sun is about three-quarters of the way across the sky. It's September, so it's probably around 4 o'clock. I'm fast, but there's no way I could get to Waynesburg in three hours carrying Sam. We need a car or some other way to cover ground quickly. I look towards the city ahead of us. I'm sure I could get a car there, but it'll look a bit suspicious if I walk in with him while's he's unconscious. I could go in alone, but I can't leave Sam here by himself. I'm debating my other options when I hear a meow from the bushes to my right. I walk over and see a cat sitting in the bushes, seemingly waiting for me. He's not wearing a collar, but he looks too well-groomed to be a stray. He walks right up to me and sits calmly, gazing into my eyes. Suddenly he starts growing rapidly- before I know it I'm looking into the emerald green eyes of a leopard.

"Oh my gosh! You're a Chimæra, aren't you?"

He nods his head in response.

"You can understand what I'm saying!" I pause for a second, and then it hits me. "I was wondering if you would be able to do a small favour for me."

He nods again.

"Me and my friend here, well, we're in kind of a hurry to get somewhere. Do you think you could… well… fly us there?"

He transforms again, becoming a sleek black horse with huge wings. It takes me a moment to realize what he's become- a Pegasus.

"Neigh!" he says, rearing up on his hind legs.

I climb onto his back and turn to face Sam, who's still lying on the ground. I use my telekinesis to lift him up and set him down in front of me- I grab his waist so he doesn't fall.

"Um… this is probably wishful thinking, but by any chance would you know how to get to Waynesburg?"

He responds by starting to flap his wings. We rise slowly into the air until the trees are just specks below us. Then all of a sudden William (that's what I've decided to call him) starts galloping through the sky. It's exhilarating to watch the landscape move beneath me as William heads north. As I fight not to fall off, I feel incredibly grateful for the horseback riding lessons Victoria made me take, although I doubt she ever thought I'd use them in quite this way. We've been flying for around an hour or so when I feel Sam start to stir.

"Sam, I want you to keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them."  
>"Okay." he replies apprehensively.<p>

"It's about 5 o'clock, so we've got two hours before we're due to meet Four and Nine. I knew we wouldn't make it if we ran, and I couldn't get a car- with you unconscious it would look suspicious, so um… I wasn't sure what to do until I met William."  
>"William?"<p>

"Yea- he agreed to fly us to Waynesburg. We're in the air now. You can open your eyes now- I just didn't want you to be surprised and panic."

Sam opens his eyes, immediately looks down, screams, panics, and slides sideways off of William.

"Sam!"

I react instinctively, using my telekinesis to pluck him out of the air, gently setting back down in front of me.

"Why did you panic? I thought if I told you what was happening you wouldn't be shocked when you opened your eyes!"

Sam's breathing heavily, and it takes him a moment to respond.

"It's not like I was planning on it! When you said William was flying us to Waynesburg, I assumed William was a pilot, not a flying horse!"

"Sorry. Since you're ah… awake now, what exactly was that thing you did in the cave?"

"What thing?"

"As we were running through that final tunnel- you created some kind of blue energy shield around me."  
>"Oh, that thing. That was simple, actually. I just kind of put the telekinesis on autopilot with instructions to deflect anything that came near you. It's really tiring though, so I don't recommend it."<p>

"Cool."

We pass the rest of the trip in silence, Sam staring off into space. I wonder what he's thinking about. Personally, I can't help but wonder about the other Garde. I know we're meeting Four and Nine, but where are the others? Are they even still alive? The breaking of the charm may have put them in danger, and they would have no way of knowing they are no longer protected. Hopefully they live, and they will find us. After about another 90 minutes I notice the ground starting to get closer. It's dark outside now, and I can see the lights of a small city up ahead. William touches down with a gallop around a mile from the city. We dismount, and I turn to Sam.

"Come on- we've got a courthouse to find." he says as he starts to walk towards the lights.

"Can you wait for us here, William? I promise we'll be back soon."

He nods his head, and I turn and sprint until I catch up to Sam. Once we reach the city I realize I have no clue where the courthouse is.

"Excuse me," I say, stopping a person walking down the street, "Would you be able to tell me where the courthouse is?"

"Go up this street, take a left at High Street and it'll be on your right."

"Thanks."

Sure enough, we find the courthouse easily. We stand about a hundred meters from it, scanning the area for Four and Nine. It isn't long before Sam speaks.

"I think that's them there," he says, pointing at two boys standing just to the left of the steps.

I look where he points. That's Nine all right, and Four looks familiar.

"You're right- that's them. Let's go."

We walk over to them, and watch as Nine notices us and nudges Four. He turns to face us and smiles.

"I'm really sorry, Sam." Four says. "We didn't mean to leave you there but we had no choice."

Sam lets out a grim smile. "Don't worry about it. I'm just glad I met Eight and got out of that place."

"Thanks for the crystal." I say to Nine. "I owe you one."  
>"No problem. I'm sure you'll find time to save my life too."<p>

We stand there in silence for a few seconds before Four speaks.

"Well… I don't know about you guys, but I'm starving. What do you say we get something to eat?"  
>"Sounds good." I say. I turn to look across the street and see a neon sign spelling out 'Bob's House of Bar-B-Q'.<p>

"Barbeque, anyone?"

We all pile into the restaurant, and it quickly becomes apparent that the food is better than anyone expected. Sam has barbeque sauce dripping from his chin, and he looks like he's having the time of his life. Four and Nine are talking animatedly on the other side of the table, and when I finish my ribs I join their conversation.

"What are you guys talking about?"

"It's a long story. We're meeting some people in a couple hours- hopefully they'll help us explain." says Nine.

"Who?"

"You'll see." he says cryptically

We finish our meals and leave the packed restaurant.

"Well," I say, "If we have time before your 'friends' arrive, there's someone me and Sam would like to show you."

I lead them outside the city to where we left William. I don't see him at first, but then I notice a slim black figure with green eyes weaving around my legs. I bend down and scoop him up.

"This," I say, "is William. He's a Chimæra, and he was a huge help to us getting here."

I just finish saying it when both Four and Nine burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" asks Sam.

"Well," says Four, "William is a she, not a he. And a very offended one at that."

"Oh. Sorry, William."

"We probably shouldn't call him- I mean her that anymore," says Sam.

"Fine. We'll call her… how about Kate?"

I hear a loud purring noise- I think somebody agrees. I reach down to pet her, and when I stand up I notice Four looking at his watch.

"Um… we should probably get going," he says. "We're supposed to be back at the courthouse by nine."

We turn to trek back into town when I hear a sharp 'Meow!' I turn to see Kate standing behind me, slowly shrinking and morphing into a hamster.

"Oh all right." I say, "I'll take you with me."

I pick her up and place her carefully in the pocket of my jacket. When we get back to the courthouse, there's nobody there. We wait for around half and hour before Four gives up.

He walks across the street, looking dejected.

"What's up with John?" Sam asks.

"He knew one of the people we were supposed to be meeting. She probably just couldn't get here in time- I expect we'll see her in the morning." Nine replies.

"Her? Do you mean Six?"

"Yea, that's her."

"But we weren't supposed to meet her for two weeks still, and at a place called-" Sam pauses as he rummages through his pockets, "4626 Harper Road in some town called Ravenswood."

"That may have been the plan, but apparently things have been… accelerated a bit. I expect we'll see her tomorrow."

We walk to the hotel Four and Nine are staying at and book another room for me- Sam's planning on squeezing in to Four and Nine's room. I walk up to my room and collapse onto the bed- it's been a long day and before I know it my eyes are closing and I drift off to sleep.

I wake up to the sound of a pleasant female voice talking to me.

"It's eight o'clock. Time to get up, sleepy."

I open my eyes and see my alarm clock sitting on the bed, looking very annoyed.


	7. Phobos' Beach

**A/N: Disclaimer in Chapter 1. (I'm getting so bored of saying that) I know, it's been a while since you've heard from me. I'm back though, and I have a nice long chapter for you this time. Special thanks for this chapter go out to BluRay99, who was kind enough to beta it for me. I hope you enjoy the final chapter before all the Garde are together. **

** Six: **Crayton places the communicator back in the bag. I can't believe Four had that with him all that time and had no clue what it was. After all the stuff we've gone through, I never expected that locating John and Sam would be so easy. I'm really glad they're okay. If we're really supposed to be the ones who replace the Elders, we'll need everybody alive. Only seven of the ten left are alive, and we really need to keep it that way. I glance at the clock and see the hour hand creeping past the seven.

"We're going to have to hurry," Crayton says.

Marina and Ella go back to their rooms to pack their stuff. I'm already packed- the last few years of living on the run have taught me that unpacking isn't worth it. I grab my bag and am putting it in front of the door when I hear a loud thump, like a hockey player crashing into the boards. I look at Crayton, who shrugs. There's another thump, much louder than the first. It seems to be coming from behind us. Crayton reaches into his bag and pulls out a double-barreled shotgun, telling me to stay where I am. There's a crash, like glass shattering. Crayton rushes over to the other room. I hear a blast from the shotgun and run over to the back of the house to help him. I see Crayton, his shotgun smoking, standing over a dead Mogadorian scout.

"We need to get out of here now."

I run back to the entrance hall, Marina and Ella following behind me, luggage in tow. There's another blast, followed by silence. I peek through the keyhole and see a cautious Mogadorian soldier approaching Crayton. The Mog has his sword drawn, and Crayton's shotgun is on the other side of the room, snapped in half.

"Go!" he yells. "I'll catch up with you later."

I hesitate, but he signals me to leave again, so I do reluctantly.

"They're here," I say. "We need to leave now."

There is no hesitation, no questions asked. When you've lived a life like one of ours, you learn that sometimes you just have to trust your allies' judgment. We're halfway out the door when we hear the sound of a blade piercing flesh, followed by the firing of a laser that lights up the entire floor.

Ella has turned pale as ivory. "Is that…?"

I nod. "He told us to go, that he would catch up with us later." I can only hope he will. I've already seen too many people sacrifice themselves: Henri for John, Katarina for me. Ella grows to her full twelve-year old size and it strikes me that she's now the same age as I was… was when Ka… Ella taps me on the shoulder. I quickly put myself together, wiping the beginning of a tear from my eye.

"Didn't you say we had to leave?" she asks.

"Yeah. Sorry… I just kind of… never mind."

We take the elevator down, just three average teens on an average day with someplace to go. We walk rapidly through the marble-tiled lobby and out to the parking lot. We run over to the car, and I jump in the driver's seat.

"Where to?" I ask.

Marina is about to respond when a massive explosion blows the car apart. I instinctively curl into a ball, trying to protect myself from the flying metal. I get up slowly and check that the others are okay. I look across the parking lot and see a group of 5 Mogs, one reloading what must be an RPG.

"We're going to have to leave the luggage, aren't we." says Marina.

"Unfortunately, yes." I prop mine up against the edge of a disabled parking sign, and they follow my lead.

I raise my arms to the sky and channel a massive wind. I throw it in the direction of the advancing group of Mogs and it knocks them over. I am preparing to summon lightning when Ella grabs my arm.

"Not here."

"What?"

"We can't fight here. There are too many people around. We're lucky those people are too busy staring at you to have called the police. Besides, we can't put innocent people in danger. We need to lead the Mogs somewhere else."

I turn to see a group of teenage boys standing just outside the hotel's main entrance. A man in a suit pushes his way through them, gawking when he sees the twisted wreckage of the car. He immediately pulls out his cell phone and starts dialing. Whether it's for the police or the fire department (the car's gas tank having ignited) I don't know, but more attention is not what we need. Ella's right. We need to get out of here before either someone is hurt or we get thrown in jail. I have no desire to have to deal with the FBI again. I start sprinting away from the hotel, into the forest that spans the acreage behind it. I have no doubt that the Mogs are chasing us, running at a superhuman speed that outstrips even ours, and that they will catch up with us soon. I stop after about 30 seconds, confident that the 1500m we've put between the hotel and us will be enough to protect both the guests and us. Marina and Ella walk in front of me, towards the charging Mogs, even though they are both unarmed. Marina turns back to face me, saying, "Start getting a storm ready. We'll hold them as long as we can until you can strike them down." I nod, raising my arms to the sky. All of the resentment, anger and jealousy I've ever felt starts to flow within me, a charge of electricity swirling around my body. I focus even more, focusing now on Sarah. What she did to John, how he was stupid enough to get himself caught for her, how he is in self-proclaimed "love" for her. I look up to see a pitch-black sky above me, clouds circling more violently than in any storm I've ever summoned before. I look out to the battle raging ahead of me. I see Ella, unarmed, without any Legacies, flipping and twisting in the air, dodging lethal blows. Suddenly she kicks out at the nearest Mog, connecting solidly with his wrist. He howls in pain and Ella grabs his sword, swinging it in a lethal arc. On the other side of the battle is Marina, who is using telekinesis to throw the nearest soldiers into each other, knocking them out cold. She picks up one of their swords and finishes them. While her back is turned, one of the other Mogs sneaks up on her and opens a ruby-red gash in her arm. She cries out and slumps to the ground, unconscious. Ella races over to protect her, her sword a pearly-white blur as the parries the blows of the three remaining soldiers. I'm amazed by how well she fights. Without Legacies she is still managing to hold off three soldiers with nothing more than a sword. I look back at the sky and see that my storm is ready. Tempus' face is swirling in its centre and I can feel the electricity jumping from cloud to cloud. I focus its energy on the nearest soldier and he turns to ash, the bolt having struck him squarely on the head. Ella redoubles her efforts, slicing down a soldier who was staring, shocked, at his fallen comrade. Finally the electric charge builds up again and I smite the final soldier. He staggers backward, but is not killed. His armor, which I hadn't noticed before, is glowing. A rune in the centre of it is emitting a pulsing red light. The rune itself is in the shape of a crudely drawn three, made up of five straight lines. He gets up slowly, touching the tip of his sword to the rune. He slashes it through the air several times, almost experimentally. I hit him with another bolt, but this one has no effect on him. I finally decide to banish the storm, and rush forward to help Ella. The soldier attacks, Ella parrying effortlessly. When their blades meet there is a flash of bright red light, and Ella is sent flying backwards. She doesn't get up. I use my telekinesis to try to fling the sword away from him, but it has no effect. I drop into a defensive stance, mindful that I can't afford to even the sword graze me without suffering the same fate as Ella. The Mogadorian levels the sword, pointing it directly at me. I tense my muscles, ready to dive out of the way. It glows a crackling red, and suddenly I am on fire. I crumple to the ground, my nerves screaming in pain, fighting to remain conscious. As my vision blackens I see the soldier walking to Ella, his sword raised over his head execution-style. As I pass out, all I can think of is how we- how I have failed…

_I'm walking on a beach, watching the waves flow in, lapping up on the shore in silence. I've never been to a beach before, but somehow the image has formed itself perfectly in my mind. I'm the only person there. Beach towels and umbrellas lie overturned in the sand, like worthless trinkets left behind by someone who has better. By someone who doesn't care, who has so much that one of his or her possessions can mean so little. I continue to walk down the beach, and suddenly I spot somebody else on this desolate, lonely beach. Two somebodies, to be exact. A boy and a girl, laughing happily, lying in the sand. The girl is blonde, with pale blue eyes. The boy is staring into her eyes, mesmerized. Suddenly he turns to face me. His face is unfamiliar, but I can't shake the feeling that I know him, that we've met somewhere before. His face slowly starts to… well, melt, almost, his features bubbling like wax. The eyebrow on the left side of his face thins, moving just a millimeter closer to his eye. His right eye slowly lightens, changing from brown to blue. The shape of his face elongates, ad suddenly I realize who he looks like. John. No sooner do I make this connection than his eyes turn to brown, and his features reform themselves into Sam's. His face finally returns to its original state, which I now recognize as being the perfect blend of the two. He leans over the girl and they kiss passionately, slowly fading away, leaving behind another beach towel, another umbrella. I am alone again on this deserted, forsaken beach. I don't know how much time has passed. 15 minutes? 3 hours? A week? I've been here for so long I can't remember how I got here. The only break in my boring routine is seeing a new couple materialize, further and further away, and eventually vanish, leaving me forever behind. It is after the 12th time that this happens that something else occurs. The sun, which has been unseen, hiding behind clouds for the last— since I got here, has come out into the open sky. It's rays beating down on me; my entire body fills with a warm glow. I savor its warmth; if nothing else it is new. I sit down in the sand, too tired to stand any longer. Yet as the sun shines on me it seems to strengthen me. I get up slowly and begin to run slowly towards the side of the beach where the people come and go. I've tried this before, but the beach was endless then. This time however, I run so fast that the water and sand are a brownish-blue blur behind me. I finally reach a stretch of beach where people have not yet come. The sand here is smooth and unspoiled, and here the waves produce sound when they reach the shore. It startles me. It is the first sound I've heard on this empty beach. I look off into the distance, and see among the brown and blue the tiniest patch of forest-green. It's like a precious wildflower, trying to survive in a garden filled with weeds. As I get closer to it, I realize that it is a forest. It is sitting squarely in the middle of the beach, no more than 20 metres on each side. I cautiously walk into it, curious as to what I might find inside. As I do, everything fades away… _

"Six! Six! Wake up!"

I open my eyes slowly to see Marina, Ella and Crayton standing over me, all of them looking worried. Marina and Ella have both been healed, it seems, and Crayton is holding a massive wicked-looking rifle.

"Are you okay?" Marina asks, concern in her eyes.

"Yea. I'm fine." Of course I'm fine. How could I not be fine? I'm finally somewhere else, finally escaped that god-forsaken beach. As I look around, I realize the forest we're currently in is identical to the one I found in my— well; it must have been a dream, right? "How long was I out?"

"Maybe 20 minutes," says Crayton. "Marina healed you, but you still wouldn't wake up."

"We were really worried you weren't going to," says Ella, the gash on her arm now nothing more than a scar.

I get up slowly, and am happy to find that all my bones and muscles are in the right places. Best of all, there's no pain. I don't know what we did before Marina.

"We're not going to make it for 9, I'm guessing."

"Seeing as it's 8:30 now and Waynesburg is an hour and a half away from here, I'd be inclined to agree with you," Crayton responds.

"Sorry it took me so long to get back to you guys," he adds. "I thought you'd be okay for a couple minutes."

"We would have been," I say. "There were only five of them, but one of them wouldn't die. I kept hitting him with lightning, but it didn't have any effect on him."

Crayton walks over to the soldier I was indicating and looks carefully at him. He traces the pattern on his armor, still glowing faintly.

"He's an Elite," Crayton says, standing up slowly.

"What's an Elite?"

"They're genetically engineered soldiers. They're incredibly strong and fast, and some of them also have the ability to absorb and channel Loric energy. This one, for example, must have had the ability to absorb and channel electricity through his armor and sword. That's why lightning couldn't kill him. In the future I recommend using one these to deal with them," Crayton says, hefting his rifle.

"Is this what you meant when you said things were going to get tougher?" Marina asks.

Crayton nods. "Thankfully there was only one of them in this group. From the looks of things, they've been patrolling the city, looking for us. We're just lucky that this group decided to try to be the heroes instead of reporting our position to the others."

"We'd better get going anyway. If we can get to Waynesburg tonight that saves us the trouble of getting up early tomorrow. I assume the car's still in the lot?"

"Um… actually, it got destroyed. One of the soldiers had an RPG and he blew up the car with me in it."

"Oh. Well in that case we can just take a taxi."

We walk back out to the street, and then in the opposite direction as the hotel. Crayton manages to find us a taxi, and while the driver is surprised we want to go all the way to Waynesburg, he doesn't object after Crayton gives him the money. It's a very bumpy ride, but the taxi driver gets us safely into Waynesburg. We find a hotel just a couple blocks from the courthouse. None of us have eaten yet, but we're all far too tired to go out. We order room service, and then go to bed. Unfortunately, I can't sleep. No matter how much I try to relax, I'm plagued by visions from my nightmare. The beach continues to haunt me all night, and it takes me ages to finally fall asleep.

**Eight: **"Well come on! It's eight-thirty and your friends are waiting for you!"

I shake my head, clearing the cobwebs from my vision. I must be dreaming still, I think as I roll over on to the cool side of my pillow. I'm just starting to get comfortable when I feel a weight on my back.

"Are you going to lie there all day? You've got places to go and things to do. Now get up!"

I roll over again and to my great surprise see an irate alarm clock jumping up and down on the bed. It has long, thin metallic arms, and beady black eyes that blink at me in anticipation. I pinch myself hopefully, but I'm definitely awake.

"I don't mean to be rude," I begin blearily, "But… who or what exactly are you?"

"Well I'm an alarm clock, of course."

"Um… don't most alarm clocks wake people with ringing instead of shouting?"

"About that… I was wondering if you could explain. You see, I was made in a factory years ago, and I've been sort of… sleeping ever since. But when you came here and went to sleep, all of a sudden it was like I woke up. It's such a great feeling to be able to walk and talk and, well, just to be alive, really."

"I'm uh… glad you're enjoying life."

This is absolutely bizarre. I've never heard anything before about alarm clocks, or anything else, for that matter, suddenly springing to life. I stand up and immediately feel a wave of dizziness come over me. I've suddenly got a splitting headache, and my arms and legs feel weak. I slowly make my way over to the closet, holding on to the wall for support. I get changed and am about to open the door when it speaks.

"Well? Aren't you going to take me with you?"

I turn around. "Take you with me?"

"Well, I suppose you could leave me here. Then again, a talking alarm clock might arouse suspicion, not to mention some questions. Besides, I want to come with you. There's nothing to talk to here."

I sigh. "Fine." I pick it up and am placing it in my pocket when I hear a screech. I realize that it's Kate, who I put in the same pocket last night. "Sorry." I say. I carefully place the clock in my other pocket. I open the door and enter the hallway. There's nobody there. I knock on the door of the room next to mine, but there's no answer. Finally I decide to go downstairs, thinking they may have tired of waiting for me. Sure enough, I find them standing in the lobby, sipping Starbucks coffees.

"I wouldn't have thought you'd need so much beauty sleep," says Nine as I approach.

I blush involuntarily, and thankfully Four breaks the silence.

"We'd better get going." he says, looking at his watch. "It's already a quarter to eight."

We walk back outside to the courthouse and wait. It isn't long before I see a group of people approaching us.


	8. Harmonic Unison

**A/N: Disclaimer... you know where. Here's Chapter Eight. Not as filling as some of the previous chapters, but I'm just letting you relax before the information overload in Chapter Nine. Please leave a review if you enjoyed (or hated) this chapter so I can improve my writing. Thanks, and bon appetit.  
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**Four:** Finally. They're here. They're okay- more imp- no. I can't think that way- she's okay. She's with two other girls, one who looks older than her, the other younger. One of them must be Seven, the other Ten. The tall man walking behind them is obviously Crayton. They stop in front of us, as if waiting for us to act first. I turn to look at Sam, who is staring straight ahead at Six. I look at her, and see her hazel eyes boring into mine questioningly. I am frozen to the spot, transfixed by We stand in these places, forming a triangle in the middle of the sidewalk. We take up most of it, annoyed passers-by swerving to avoid running into us.

"Am I missing something?" asks Seven. I hear her faintly, as if I was underwater.

"Do you think they'd notice if we left?" asks Ten, bouncing impatiently.

"Maybe we should give them some privacy," Eight suggests quietly.

They walk to the other side of the street, talking quietly amongst themselves, leaving us in our bizarre, frozen triangle.

I break the silence, unable to bear it any more. "You're um... looking well, Six."

"Thanks," she says quietly. "Are you guys both okay?"

"Yea, we're fine," says Sam. "Wasn't sure if I was going to be for a while there," he says, chuckling, "but I'm fine now."

Uh oh. That wasn't how I had intended Six to find out about me lying to her about Sam. I was planning on her being more "relaxed" at the time, preferably almost asleep and too tired to hit me.

"What do you mean?" asks Six inevitably.

"I meant with me being in the prison and all that. I mean, if Eight hadn't-"

"What prison?"

"The Mogadorian prison. In West Virginia."

"You were in the prison?"

"Um... Yea. Didn't John tell you?"

"No. When I talked to him he said you were out scouting the area by yourself."

"I was never scouting anywhere, Six. I just met back up with John late last night."

"Then why did he..." says Six, thinking out loud. "John?"

"What?"

I hate playing dumb, but it's my only chance to get out of here without one or both of them being seriously angry with me for lying.

"Why did you tell me Sam was with you if he wasn't?"

Sam is watching me intently; seemingly curious as to what reason I can come up with. I decide I have nothing better than the truth.

"I was hoping that by the time we met up Sam would be back and I wouldn't have to worry about it. We were separated in the prison. I tried to save Sam but there was nothing I could do. I just panicked when you asked me where he was- I figured I could just tell you in person. Sorry I lied- I just thought it would be easier that way but I was wrong and I apologize."

I look up, ready to duck if necessary. To my surprise, it is Sam who looks more annoyed than Six. He is glaring daggers at me while Six is merely looking down at her feet, lost in thought.

"I understand why you did what you did," says Six after some hesitation, "but we have to be able to trust each other. And we need to tell the truth to each other if that's going to happen."

"I know. I'm sorry."

Sam scowls and walks away, joining the other group across the road.

"Is he okay?" asks Six nervously as Sam storms away.

"I don't know. He seems pretty mad at me. Hopefully he'll cool down soon and I can try apologizing again."

We walk over to join the others and find ourselves in the middle of a heated debate. Eight and Nine are arguing with Seven and Ten while Crayton is standing between them, obviously trying to stop a fight from breaking out.

"Look," Seven says impatiently, "Five is still out there. Do you remember how we all felt when we were alone? For all we know his or her Cèpan might not even be alive. Our first priority has to be finding them."

"Five'll be fine. He's got legacies, he can take care of himself," says Eight, pacing impatiently.

"How do you know that?" asks Ten. "He could be younger like me, without any legacies."

"I get your point," admits Nine, "but the fact of the matter is that we have no clue where Five is. We could spend months trying to find them, and we can't afford to waste that time. We know where Setràkus Ra is. We're close to where he is. We can go after him and end this thing."

"We have communicators- we can find him easily," says Ten.

"How do you know he even has a communicator?" challenges Eight.

"How do you know Setràkus Ra is still in that prison?" snaps Seven.

"Will you guys cut it out already?" Crayton interjects. "You're both right. We don't know any of this stuff. But we need to do both. We need to find Five and we need to track down Setràkus Ra. As a matter of fact, we're about to start that later today, assuming you guys have finished by then."

"Sorry," mutters Ten ashamedly.

"We need to discuss what's going on here so we know what we're going to do next. Follow me; we need to get moving."

Crayton starts walking away from us, toward the forest outside of town. We follow him, Nine scowling under his breath. Crayton leads us to a forest clearing, where we find a forest-green truck camouflaged under a layer of leaves. We shake them off, and hop in. Eight is climbing in the backseat when I hear a shriek, followed by a mechanical springy sound and a crash.

"What's going on back there?"

"Nothing," she says. "My friends are just a little rowdy."

"Your friends?" asks Sam from the middle row.

"Yeah, Kate has somebody to talk to now. Meet Tock," she says, pulling an alarm clock out of her pocket. I'm about to assume she's gone crazy when I see its long, spindly metal legs and beady eyes.

"Is that alarm clock alive?" asks Seven from the front seat.

"Of course I am," it answers indignantly. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"

I don't mean to stare, but I can't help myself. As I look around I see the others staring as well. Six is the first to pull herself together, and the rest of us quickly follow.

"Don't worry, Tock," says Eight. "They're just probably not used to seeing talking alarm clocks."

"I am so not asking," says Six, shaking her head.

"Who's Kate?" asks Seven, looking confused.

"She's my chimæra- I found her yesterday in some bushes. Just warning you," she says as she takes a hamster out of her pocket, "she can be a wee bit jumpy."

We all duck as she leaps out of Eight's hands and on to the steering wheel, startling Crayton, who jumps several feet in the air. He scoops up Kate and passes her back to Eight, who looks annoyed at everybody else, who are laughing hysterically. "Please," Crayton says, "at least warn me next time."

Crayton puts the car into drive, passing through a marsh, sending several squirrels running for their lives. We find a main road quickly and eventually pull onto the highway.

"Where are we going?" asks Nine, staring out of the window with a glazed expression on his face.

"A safe house." replies Crayton. "Conveniently, it is also holding our chimæra.

"No offense or anything," says Seven, "but the last safe house we went to didn't turn out to be very safe."

"Very true. That's why we're only staying for a while before we leave for somewhere more secure."

We drive for around half an hour before taking an exit. We turn onto a normal residential road, and up the driveway of house #49. Crayton hops out of the car with a giant keychain and unlocks the door. "Come on in," he says, "but watch out for the traps."

"Traps?" Sam asks.

"Just kidding," Crayton says, showing us a rare smile.

Crayton leads us down into the basement and through a steel reinforced door. I duck as a chimpanzee goes swinging over my head, being chased by a gorilla.

"These... Would be our chimæra." Crayton says, scooping up the chimp. When we enter the room they stop fighting and line up in front of us. The chimp hops in front of Seven, the gorilla jumps excitedly in front of Nine, and a canary buzzes around Ten's head. That leaves an owl hooting in the centre of the room. Six seems to be expecting it to come to her, but it stays in the middle of the room.

"Sorry," Crayton says, "but I think he must belong to Five."

"So I don't have one?" Six asks.

"You have one, but it must be somewhere else. We'll keep an eye out for it."

We tromp back upstairs, this time with several chimæra in tow. Crayton stops momentarily to grab a steel suitcase and then we pile back into the car. We drive north, past the state line. As Crayton drives, we (but mostly he) talk. "Ideally I would have liked to have taken us out of the country, but I understand that some of you have terrorist ties, which would make that both dangerous and difficult. A safe house would be my next choice, but as Marina pointed out those don't seem to be too safe anymore. So we're going to the cabin of a friend of mine who used to live in Ohio. He was a... secretive... kind of guy, so I'm the only person he ever told about it. We should be safe there until we decide where to go next." We nod wearily, too tired to respond. We pull off of the highway and on to a tiny road, no more than a hiking path, that leads into the forest. Eventually we come to a fallen tree blocking the path. I assume Crayton has made a wrong turn until he gets out of the car and walks over to the tree. He fumbles with something near the ground and suddenly the tree sinks into the earth.

"What was that?" Six asks.

"I told you, he was a secretive kind of guy. Also a Loric ally- that's how I got to know him."

"So you used to visit Earth?" I ask, suddenly interested.

"I only recently became a Cèpan- before that I was one of the Loric ambassadors to this planet."

We continue driving- I notice the tree rising back into place behind us. It must be on some kind of hydraulic lift. The cabin comes into sight in a clearing, surrounded by pine trees.

"Well, this is it," Crayton says.

I have to say, it isn't much. It has two floors, but little furniture besides two beds and a table. A small chair sits in one of the corners, looking very fragile. The girls take the area upstairs, leaving us the floor. Sam rummages through the cupboards, presumably looking for food. "Wow!" he exclaims. He pulls several cans out, and I can understand his surprise. The first one is labeled "Creamed Black Truffles", and still has the $150 price tag attached. Looking through the cans, we find caviar, lobster soup, and what I can only describe as the mother of all can openers. It's a sphere, about three feet wide, with a gap in the middle for a can. The gap has razor sharp blades running all around it, making it a place where I really don't want to get my finger caught. We place a can in it, and we hear a sharp whirring sound. The can is spat back out in under a second, a perfectly smooth cut having opened it up. In this fashion we open several more cans, and seconds later are having a very expensive but unfilling dinner.

"Just how rich was this guy?" asks Eight between spoonfuls of soup.

"He was a Loric ally. It was the least we could do." replies Crayton, not shifting his gaze from his plate.

Eight opens her mouth as if to ask what he means but swiftly closes it again. The rest of the meal passes in a restrained silence, everybody either too tired or too wise to ask questions. Crayton finishes first, getting up and dumping his dish in the sink. "Get some sleep tonight," he says. "We have a lot to talk about tomorrow."

We obediently trudge over to our 'beds', wondering what tomorrow will hold.


	9. Blue Rinse

**A/N: You know the disclaimer drill. Yea, this is a shortish chapter. My apologies for the long delay; my life has been way too hectic recently. Because of all of the information in this chapter I moved some of the stuff I was planning to have here to chapter ten, which will be longer. Thanks to everybody who left a review over the last week reminding me to update- somehow this had slipped out of my mind for a little while. Please let me know what you think of this chapter compared to the last couple- I feel like it's written a bit differently and I want to know if you guys like it. Have fun!**

** Eight: **

_I'm sprinting down a metal corridor, trying to keep pace with Six. She is racing ahead of me, taking turns seemingly at random, and I do my best to keep her in sight. Where am I? I don't remember ever being here before. Why am I running? Am I running from something? To something? It takes me a while to realize. I'm running to keep up with Six, of course. I'd be lost if I weren't able to follow her. That thought gives me a boost of energy, my legs moving faster as I pull almost even with her. _

"_Why are you running?" I ask her, my voice echoing around the hallway._

"_Don't stop!" she replies as she pulls back ahead of me._

_Don't stop? What kind of answer is that? I'm about to ask when she increases her speed even further, pulling out of my sight. When I come to the next intersection I pause, trying to find a clue as to which way she went. I find nothing, and after a while I decide I should probably just pick a path at random. There's a chance it'll be the right one, and if not I can always double back. I start running again, making a left turn. Suddenly a bright light surrounds me, and I stop in shock, my eyes snapping shut against the blinding brightness. I open them slowly, and am surprised to see that I am outside. The sun is bearing down brightly from overhead, making it uncomfortably warm. Ahead of me is a desert; a flat plain covered in dry sand with nothing else in sight. I turn behind me to see if I can go back the way I came when something heavy smashes into me, sending me sprawling into the air. I crash heavily on the ground, breathing hard. I slowly lift my head of off the ground and see Sam walking towards me. _

"_Sorry about that," he says, offering me his hand to pull me up. "You shouldn't have stopped running."_

_He turns away from me and begins to sprint faster than I've ever seen him run before. _

"_Why are we running? Sam! Sam! What's going on?"_

_I'm almost delirious now- I have a nasty headache from the collision and my voice is hoarse from screaming. I turn around slowly in a circle, looking for a sign. A sign of something. The metal corridor leading back into the maze where I was following Six. Sam's face, walking back towards me, an explanation ready. There's nobody. Nothing. It's just me. Me and this hot, dry desert. I decide to try to follow Sam. There must have been a reason why he was running. And a reason is something; it's better than what I have now. Nothing. _

_I run for what could be minutes, hours, maybe years. I run faster than I have ever ran before. I'm not hungry or thirsty. I don't tire. I feel invincible, infinitely strong and durable. But I don't know why. Why I'm running, why I'm here, even where we are. We? There's no we. Not anymore. It's just me. Me and… "Nine?"_

_He's sitting in the middle of the desert, right in the middle of my path, blocking the way. He turns his head when he hears me, looking intently into my eyes._

"_You don't know, do you?" he asks_

"_Know what?" _

"_Why they came. What they really wanted."_

"_Why who came? Who are they?"_

_He sighs. "What's the point, anyways?"_

_He slowly begins to fade, becoming more and more translucent until he disappears entirely. Sitting on the ground where he was is a smooth, flat stone. As I reach down to touch it, its surface ripples, a milky-white wave traveling around it. I feel the coolness of the stone in the palm of my hand for a second before I vision goes dark and I feel myself fall. _

When I open my eyes I see nothing. It takes them a while to adjust to the darkness of the room after the searing light of the desert. I roll over onto my side and see light beginning to sneak past the curtains. I must have been dreaming. But what dream could be like that? The intense sensations, the sheer length of it all, the feeling of knowing nothing, of being completely and utterly helpless… it's like nothing I've ever experienced before. I look around the small room where Six, Ten and me are sleeping and see a pair of empty blankets lying on the floor. They must have gone down to eat already. I stumble blearily down the stairs and into the kitchen, drawn by the smell of food. The others are crowded around a small table, eating toast and laughing.

"Care for something to eat?" Seven asks, deftly slipping two slices of toast onto a plate.

"Sure." She hands it to me, and I eat slowly, trying to forget what I had just experienced. I'm aware of the others' conversation, but if they try to include me I am oblivious to it. I'm not in a talking mood, anyway. I finish after any of them, and eventually decide to join them in the main room.

"Are you okay?" Ten asks.

"Yea, I'm fine. I just…" I trail off not sure what to say. I try to pull myself together and pay attention.

Crayton walks into the room, and all eyes turn to him. "As promised, I'm about to explain what our next steps are going to be with regards to saving Lorien. I assume all of you are familiar with the background information regarding the Loric-Mogadoric war?"

Everybody nods.

"Then you know that there are approximately 10 billion civilian Mogadorians living on Mogadore, approximately 750 light-years from Earth and 350 from Lorien. However, you likely don't know much about the Mogadoric military, the force that has been tasked with our destruction. In total it consists of over five million soldiers and ten million scouts. It is commanded by Setràkus Ra, supreme leader of Mogadore. There is also a highly-trained, genetically modified group of soldiers known as Elites who number in the hundred thousands. Many of them also have partial immunity to Loric powers. Some of us have even encountered one already. That means that there are over fifteen million well-trained, well-armed beings doing their utmost to destroy the eight of us. Perhaps now you understand why the Mogadorians are not concerned about losing a few soldiers here and there. The reason the battles we have fought have been against so few soldiers is because they have very limited intelligence. While they know we are in the United States, the hundred thousand soldiers currently deployed on Earth have been forced to spread out and comb the country in groups of a couple hundred. Even if we were to evade or destroy the soldiers currently in pursuit of us, there are 149 similarly sized groups waiting just in case that were to happen."

"Are you trying to tell us that this is hopeless?" Nine asks, a scowl on his face.

"No. I don't believe in impossible situations. What I'm trying to tell you is that the conventional methods aren't going to work in this scenario. There are far too many of them and not enough of us for us to blast our way through all of them."  
>"So what do you suggest we do?" Six asks doubtfully<p>

"Simple. We cheat. Remember those fifteen million soldiers I told you about? Almost all of them are currently on a planet just outside of our solar system, awaiting the order to come in and annihilate us. We need to ensure they don't have time to. We need to get them before they can get us."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Nine asks

"Would you please lend me your Loralite pendants?"

We oblige. I feel weird without it on- I've worn it for as long as I can remember and it seems as much a part of me as anything. Crayton collects the wedge-shaped pendants and places them on the table. As we watch, he arranges them so that the five of them form a semi-circle.

"As you can see, we're still missing four pendants. Five's, and the three that Setràkus Ra has. That's why I said yesterday that we needed to find Five and kill Setràkus Ra- without the pendants we don't stand a chance."

"But what exactly will the pendants do?" I ask

"When placed together to form a circle and infused with Loric power, they form what is known as a bio-bomb. The resulting detonation will destroy living organisms while leaving buildings and other inorganic matter unharmed. If it is detonated on the planet all of the soldiers are kept on, it will kill them all."

"Just like that?" Seven asks, seemingly halfway between amazement and horror

"Just like that. The only practical challenge that leaves is getting close enough to the planet to drop it."

"So you're basically saying that all we have to do is drop this thing on their heads and this whole thing will be over?" Six asks

"Not quite. We would still have to deal with the Mogadorians already on Earth, but I think you'll agree that that's a much more manageable task."  
>"So what are we going to do next?" Four asks<p>

"There are three things we still need to do; find Five, get the pendants from Setràkus Ra and somehow get near the barracks planet. We'll need all the firepower we can muster to storm the Mogadorian base, so we'll track down Five first. We leave tomorrow. In the meantime, why don't you guys explore a bit. There are some… interesting… things to see near here."

We slowly file out of the room. Crayton kept our pendants. I wonder if the others are feeling as uncomfortable as I am. I feel like I knew nothing about what was really happening. Crayton has had this master plan all along and the others seem to understand it so easily.

"Do you want to have a look around with me?"

I whirl around and see Sam standing behind me. Somehow I hadn't heard him approach.

"I'd be happy to," I say, trying to sound cheerful. "I'm sure there's a lot to see."

As we walk towards the forest I glance back over my shoulder to see Four and Six talking quietly about something. I nudge Sam, who smirks.

"I don't need two guesses to know what that's about," he says.

We walk off into the forest, and despite myself I can't help but wonder what we'll find.


	10. In Lieu of Terror

**A/N: Disclaimer before Chapter One. This is a seriously action packed chapter. Lots of stuff happening, a new character appears, and our heroes are headed to find the final living member of the Garde. As promised, this is a longer chapter, which I hope all of you enjoy.  
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**Six:**

15 million soldiers. More than any army on Earth. And they all want to kill us. I don't like to admit it, but Crayton's right. We wouldn't stand a chance against them, not even all ten of us. Our only chance will be if we can recover the other's pendants and build that bomb Crayton was talking about. I still don't understand how he expects us to get near the barracks planet, but… there must just be a reason he's not telling us. Do we really even stand a chance of getting there? Setràkus Ra has three of the pendants we need, and from the stories I heard from Katarina, he's nearly invincible. These are the thoughts running through my head as I walk into the clearing surrounding the cabin. I find a relatively comfortable tree stump and sit down. As I'm sitting I notice John slowly walking up to me. He looks anxious, like something's bothering him. I'm about to ask him what it is when he speaks.

"Hey."

Seriously? Hey? Something must be wrong. He looks, well, almost depressed, really.

"Do you want to walk around for a bit, explore like Crayton said?" I ask, hoping I'll be able to cheer him up.

"Sure. Might as well."

I get up and we start walking through the forest. As forests go, this one seems pretty mundane. I shouldn't be complaining, though. There's nothing in here that wants to kill us, which makes for a pleasant change.

"So," I ask, "why the long face?"

"What do you mean?"

"You seem… anxious, or something. Is everything okay?"

"Yea, I'm fine. It's just..."

" – now you know how hopeless our situation is. I know, I feel the same way too," I say, completing his sentence.

John sighs. "I mean, I trust Crayton and all, but I wonder whether his plan will really work. If we need to come face-to-face with Setràkus Ra… well, some of us might not live to talk about it. I just feel like too many people have died already, like all of their sacrifices won't be enough for us to succeed."

"You're talking about Henri," I say. It is a statement, not a question.

He turns to face me directly, looking at me sadly, but saying nothing. I try to think of something to say that might comfort him but find that I can't. He's right. It's hopeless. Katarina gave her life for me, and look at what good it's done. There are still millions of Mogs out there thirsty for my blood, and now I have to fend them off alone. Alone. The fear comes at me in waves, surprising me when I realize that that isn't what it is. I've felt fear before, when I was younger, and this isn't it. This is more instinctive, almost primal. It reaches deep inside my body and fills it with the urge to flee, to break down in tears, to escape. It takes me a moment to recognize it for what it is- terror. It takes all of my willpower to stay where I am and not run away. Tears streaming down my face, I turn to look at John and see him on the ground next to me. He notices me looking at him and gives me a half-smile that he must hope is vaguely comforting, but I can tell he is experiencing the same feeling as me. My willpower starts to fade, and I can feel myself weakening further when I hear the voice from inside of me.

_This isn't who you are, Six. You've been through too much to feel this scared of the Mogs, no matter how many of them there are. Something is making you and John feel like this, and it will overwhelm both of you unless you destroy it. Now be strong, and find it!_

I lift my head up and look behind me. Now that I think about it, I can sense the terror is coming from that direction. I look carefully and see a black-robed figure standing in the shadow of a tree, holding his hands out in front of him, curling them into fists over and over. I use the remainder of my energy in flaring my palm at him, sending him flying into the tree. He gets up slowly, and I get the feeling that his blood-red eyes are staring directly at me before he melts into the shadows. With his absence I feel the terror slowly retreating. Within a couple of seconds I feel strong enough to get up and walk over to John, who is standing now as well.

"What was that?" he asks nervously.

"I don't know, and I don't really care so long as we don't run into it again."

"You mean you don't think it might have been a Mog?"

To be honest, I hadn't really thought about it. Before now the only Mogs we had run into were the typical civilian type, who looked like regular humans, and the scouts and soldiers. None of them had ever shown the ability before to affect our emotions beyond the 'I'm scared because that heavily armed alien wants to kill me' level, but who knows.

"I don't think so," I say, "but whoever it was wasn't friendly, that's for sure. We should probably let Crayton know."

We head back to the cabin at a swift jog to see the clearing surrounding it is empty. The others must have gone exploring as well. We open the door to the cabin and find Crayton sitting in a chair in the kitchen, talking to a glowing red crystal. He turns on seeing us and holds up his hand, asking us to wait.

"So, Alexis, as I said, we'll be on our way over there tomorrow morning. We should be able to pick you and Five up within 24 hours or so."

With that he places the crystal on the table and its glow fades.

"I thought you were all out exploring," he says.

"We were," I say, "but we saw something we thought we should tell you about. While we were talking, something started to affect our emotions. Both of us started to feel overwhelmed and scared."  
>"It was more than that," John says. "It was terror. It made me – it made both of us just want to run away from it and never face it again."<p>

"It was a black-robed figure who seemed to be causing it," I continue. "I used my telekinesis when I saw him, and he just vanished after that. We didn't think it could have been a Mogadorian, since none of them have ever done that before, but we thought we should tell you anyway."

Crayton swears under his breath. "You're sure?" he asks. "It was terror you were feeling?"

We both nod.

"Deimos," Crayton mutters.

"Who?" John and me ask in unison.

"One of Setràkus Ra's lieutenants. I don't have time to explain more. We need to leave here as soon as possible. If he saw the two of you than he knows we're here. The soldiers will be here soon." Crayton pauses for a second and then asks, "Could you two round up the others for me? You'll be able to do it quicker than I could. I'll get the truck ready here in the meantime."

We head back outside and look around to see that the clearing is empty. I start to head into the woods when John stops me.

"I've got a better idea," he says, closing his eyes. He stays still for a moment, focusing intensely before opening them again. "Nine says he and Seven are coming as fast as they can."

"Wait," I say, confused. "Since when are you a telepath?"

John shrugs. "I started to notice hints of it a while ago but this was the first time I've used it deliberately. Come on- we need to find Sam and Eight."

I'm about to suggest we split up when I hear a crash to my left. I turn to see a Mog scout sliding along the ground toward me. My instincts kick in; I summon a wall of flame in front of me, which incinerates him. I extinguish it quickly and follow John as he sprints in the direction the scout came from. We find Sam and Eight standing back to back in a clearing, almost completely surrounded by Mogs. Sam has his hands held high in the air, a blue sheen emanating from them and coming down to form a barrier between them and the Mogs. From inside the barrier Eight is using her telekinesis to throw Mog after Mog into the distance. For every one that disappears though, another takes its place, hacking away at the shield. Sam's face is covered in sweat as he struggles to maintain the shield against the onslaught. I snap my fingers, fire leaping to my hands as I prepare to help Sam and Eight. John has his Lumen lit, and he slashes the narrowed beams of light in vicious arcs, taking out several soldiers at a time. I start throwing fireballs, roasting a few Mogs, but the flames aren't catching well. Sam is forced to his knees, and his shield starts to dim, flickering in and out of view. I rip a sword from the nearest soldier as I try to fight my way to the centre of the scrum before Sam and Eight are overwhelmed. I can tell I won't be fast enough, though. John also grabs a sword, but he's even further away than me. The shield fades again when suddenly a red-hued blur streaks past me, flattening everything in its path. Nine is now standing in the centre of the battle, swinging a pair of deadly blades with devastating accuracy. He flares them out suddenly, and a wave of force flies past us, sending the Mogs flying backwards. None of them get up.

"Come on," Nine says. "We need to get going."

We sprint back to the cabin before the Mogs have a chance to recover. Crayton and Marina are waiting for us in the truck. We all pile in quickly, and then I remember.

"Don't drive yet," I tell Crayton. "They use bugs to track vehicles- they'll be able to track us.

"I know; I already checked and we're clear."

With that he shifts the truck into drive and we're racing along the road leading away from the cabin at a ridiculous speed. We're coming up to the fallen tree when Crayton suddenly jerks the truck to the left. He drives the truck through the forest, crashing through trees, traveling far too fast to avoid them. A sudden explosion straight ahead of us shakes the ground beneath us. A trio of soldiers with heavy metal armour is charging straight at us; as they get closer the armour glows, revealing them to be Elites. I try to throw them out of the way with my telekinesis, but it only causes them to stumble briefly.

"That's not going to work," Crayton says. "Grab my bag from the trunk; I've got a couple of guns in there." He tries to swerve around the Elites but they move with the truck, keeping them on a collision course with us.

Sam scrambles over the back seat into the trunk and tosses Crayton's bag over to us. I grab a pistol out of it and reach over to give the rifle to Eight, who's sitting next to me.

She shakes her head. "I can't shoot," she says.

Shrugging, I offer it to Nine, who takes aim at the lead Elite through the open window. I fire several shots at the one to the left, but he raises his sword, which glows blue, and the bullets pass to either side of him. I reload and fire a quick set of three shots, one at each Elite. The first two deflect them again, but the third is caught by surprise; unfortunately my shot misses anyway. Nine fires another burst that fells the unprepared Elite. We're within 50 yards of them now, and all of our shots are still being deflected. I toss my pistol to John, who starts shooting, and in frustration chuck a fireball at the Elites. Big mistake. It doesn't incinerate them, and the lead Elite's armour and sword begin to glow a fiery red, like an ember. He points it at the truck and a streak of fire leaps toward us. I react quickly, summoning a wave of water that extinguishes the fire. The remaining Elites keep running; just before Crayton can run them over they jump with inhuman agility, landing on the roof of the truck, which buckles underneath them. Ella lets out a scream of fear as the roof creaks, threatening to collapse. One of the Elites swings his sword in a wide arc that shatters both windows, sending shards of glass hurtling towards us. Eight quickly waves her hand and the shards are immobilized, having hit an invisible barrier. She snaps her fingers and the shards zoom up to the roof, impaling one of the Elites, who collapses and rolls off of the roof. Grimacing, Crayton pulls onto the highway, accelerating to try to shake off the remaining Elite, but he remains steadfast. We're racing down the highway at a speed far above the limit, and I can only hope we don't get arrested by police (the second time for some of us). The remaining Elite slices his sword downward, opening a thin gash in the roof. He plucks an object from his belt and tosses it through, the beeping red sphere landing next to John. He looks at it for a split second, and then grabs it and throws it out of the window into the woods. It detonates with a massive explosion, causing us all to wince at the attention it must have attracted. Nine levels his rifle at the Elite, aiming through the opening, but the Elite deflects the bullet back into the truck, where it narrowly misses Marina. Crayton finally swerves off of the highway, through a patch of trees and into yet another clearing. He grabs the rifle from Nine, steps outside the truck and levels it at the Elite, dodging the burst of fire it sends at him. He fires off a continual stream of bullets- the Elite deflects the first several, but his invisible shield eventually gives way and he goes up in blue flames, turning to ash.

"Well that was fun," Crayton says sarcastically as we get out of the truck. It is badly beat up, with a pair of broken windows and a room that looks like it could collapse at any moment. Crayton sighs. "It wouldn't have gotten us there in time anyways."

"Um… where exactly arewe going?" asks Sam.

"We're headed to Australia to pick up Five and his Cèpan," Crayton responds.

"So… how are we getting to Australia?" asks John.

"I was getting there," Crayton says with a smile. "Since some of us are inconveniently terrorists, and as such on the American no-fly list, we'll have to fly there from Canada."

"Would it be worth asking how we're going to get to Canada?" asks Nine annoyedly.

Crayton takes a small silver-blue whistle from his pocket and blows. All of our Chimæra are drawn by it, coming to stand in front of him.  
>"Four, I understand you have a talent for talking to animals," Crayton says. "Would you please ask them to assume 'flight form'? They'll know what you mean."<p>

Four closes his eyes for a moment, concentrating, and the Chimæra start to grow. Within seconds we are standing in front of four fully-grown winged horses- pegasi. The seven of us and our stuff just barely fit on them- I end up sandwiched between John and Sam, which is a little awkward. John gives another silent command to the pegasi and they lift off, soaring high into the sky, heading north, to Canada.


	11. Multitasking

**A/N: Disclaimer in Chapter 1. Yes, I know it's been a while, but as important as this story is to me, exams had to come first. Sorry, guys. In random Ro9 news, the blurb on the back of the book makes it seem that much of it will be told from Six's PoV, possibly jointly with Four. Finally, the recently released preview of Ro9 mentions that Five is a shape-shifter. In my master list of characters, I had shape-shifter written down as his master legacy. I just wanted to clarify that I came up with that idea independently and did not take it from the preview. So the same deal here, as all the other chapters- please let me know how you enjoy it with a review- I really do appreciate it. **

**Four: **

For the record, the two-hour Pegasus ride from Ohio to Canada is not fun, especially when it starts to snow en-route. Granted, it could have been worse, like if it had been someone else instead of Six who had had their arms wrapped around me from behind the entire flight, but it still was not one of my favourite experiences. Then again, I've spent most of my life running away from homicidal aliens; so flying away from them makes for a nice change of pace.

"So what do you think of Crayton's plan?"

The disembodied voice comes out of nowhere, and it takes me a second to register it as Nine.

"I think it's decent, as plans go," I reply silently.

"Haven't you thought about what we're going to do after gathering all the pendants? How we're going to get the bomb to the planet once we build it? A plan isn't any good if it's only half finished."

"I guess Crayton has something planned. We'll find out soon, hopefully."

"That doesn't bother you?" Nine's voice becomes more forceful, and I'm surprised at how deafening a silent conversation can be. "The mission we're all on to both save our lives, not to mention Lorien, is now in control of a guy we only met a week ago. He has some plan that he won't even tell us, because either he doesn't trust us or he doesn't know himself. You seem like an intelligent person, so don't expect me to believe you're okay with that."

Now that Nine mentions it, I have to admit he has a point. We do barely know Crayton. For all we know, he might _not _have a plan beyond finding Five. But he knows more than any of us, and that means we have to trust him, for better or worse. I try to convey this to Nine, but he seems doubtful.

"If you say so," he replies, leaving me unsettled. He remains silent for the rest of the trip, and I can only hope I've convinced him.

Nine seems almost… well, disturbed, to me. He's extremely powerful, but his bloodlust is both somewhat inspiring and shocking. He seems to hold a personal vendetta against every single Mog we meet. We all do, I guess, but even Six's isn't nearly as powerful as his. He hates running away or hiding from Mogs, even when it would give us the best chance of survival; he always wants to fight and kill as many of them as he can. I'm worried his impulse to charge into battle might cost us something important someday.

Now he seems suspicious of Crayton, who despite being annoyingly vague with his plans, has done seemingly everything possible to keep us alive. Either he's paranoid or he has spectacular instincts. We're all paranoid, really, having been on the run for so long, but Nine, as he does with almost everything, has taken it to a new level.

After a while I notice the ground starting to get closer, and soon we're skimming the tops of trees, eventually landing in an open field. I can see a small airport near the horizon, and we start walking in silence, towing our luggage behind us. Once we get there a tired-looking customs official glances at the passports Crayton gives him and then waves us on to the plane. Crayton heads up to the cockpit, leaving the six of us in the cramped passenger compartment. I immediately fall, exhausted, into the nearest seat, for once not caring who's sitting next to me.

_She slides silently ahead down the hallway, her head swiveling in an arc as she surveys the area. She comes back frowning._

"_I don't understand it," she says. "It should have been right over there."_

_I walk over to where she's standing and look for myself. We're standing in front of a rough, jagged stone wall. My eyes scan the area, looking for the telltale blue glint of Loralite, but in vain. Something's wrong. The map shows a storage room right here, but obviously there isn't one. Ever since we got separated from Nine I've had the feeling that something was wrong. I pull out the map in frustration and look at it again. Sure enough, the map shows that we're in the wrong corridor. I'm about to turn around to explain this when I feel her hand on my shoulder. _

"_John. They're coming."_

_Her hand is deathly cold, sending a numbing, icy feeling through my nerves. I look up at her piercing, frosty blue eyes and suddenly find myself unable to respond._

"_John?" she asks, her face the picture of concern._

_I pull myself together and answer. "They know we're here?" _

_She nods, biting her lip anxiously._

"_Let's go." We set off at a sprint down the hallway back towards the main chamber._

"_I realized why there's nothing here," I say desperately as we run. "We're in the wrong place- it's supposed to be all the way on the other side."_

"_We don't have time," she says, shaking her head. 'They'll find us any minute now."_

_Sure enough we see a pair of Mogs disappearing down another hallway just as we arrive in the main chamber. I pause for a second, getting my bearings, when I see Nine walking into the chamber from another entrance, carrying a Loralite pendant. He notices us and steps back, shocked. _

"_W-What are you doing here already?" he asks, hands shaking._

"_What do you mean wh—" I start to answer, before she cuts me off._

"_I didn't think you'd be back here already," she replies apologetically._

_There's a moment where we just stand there and then I cut in, having had enough. "Would either of you mind telling me just what's going on? I thought the Mogs had got you," I say, turning to face Nine, who's sheepishness is somehow sadistically pleasing, "and then you turn up, with the thing we've been looking for the whole time, and we're the ones who aren't supposed to be here?"_

_He completely ignores my rant, annoying me even more. "Come on," he says to her, "We have to get out of here."_

_I run over to follow them but they vanish when she grabs his hand._

"_Where are you going?" I ask, frustrated._

"_To kill Setràkus Ra, of course."_

"_And is there a reason I'm not allowed to come and help you?" I ask impatiently._

"_Help us?" the disembodied voice exclaims incredulously. "You don't even have a Master Legacy yet- you'd just get in our way. Besides, you're too loyal to him. You'd follow him to the ends of the Earth to find Five if he wanted you to, and we can't afford that."_

"_I'm sorry, John," she cuts in, "but… Nine's right. It's better you don't come with us."_

_I open my mouth to respond, but close it again when I realize they've already left. I look around the chamber- there are four exits, including the one I just came through. I reach fro my map, but my hands close on empty air. I scowl as I realize that I must have dropped it somewhere. _

_I walk randomly towards the passage directly opposite me, hoping I'll get lucky when a soldier comes racing out of it, his outstretched blade nearly impaling me. I sidestep nimbly, grabbing his sword and slicing him apart, but more Mogs are coming. Another pair charge from the East door- I throw them into each other, knocking them unconscious, but I know it won't do any good. I can hear their mental communication when I focus- it's in an arcane, primitive language, but the meaning is devastatingly clear. They know I'm here. _

_They come from all sides now, in seemingly endless numbers. I hack and slash my way though them, holding a pair of swords and controlling two more with my mind, but I can't get anywhere. Whenever I fight my way near an exit a swarm of them comes from that direction, forcing me back to the centre of the room. _

_It's after one of these swarms that I turn to find myself face-to-face with an ethereal, translucent being. It swirls around me like a shadow come to life, hovering just over a sword's-length away from me. I act quickly, taking a step and thrusting, but the blade passes right through it harmlessly, the cold steel visible on the other side. It raises its hand, causing a blue sphere to surround me, and the Mogs all around me step back, keeping a foot of space between them and the sphere. _

_For a fleeting second I think it might be an ally trying to protect me, but this happy thought is shattered by the slow constriction of the sphere. I slash at it with a sword, but it bounces off with a sharp metallic clang, sparks flying from where it made contact. I try again with my foot, but with a similar result. Before long I'm forced to my knees, the space around me growing smaller and smaller. The being hovers above me, one hand slowly balling into a fist, no doubt controlling the sphere. I continue to stare at it out of curiosity more than nothing else, its pale grey eyes boring into me with intense hatred. Then I can no longer breathe and everything goes black. _

My eyes snap open and I'm instantly alert. I'm breathing heavily, sweat rolling in beads down my forehead. But I _am_breathing. After what I've just experienced, even breathing seems like a miracle.

"Are you okay?" Six asks from across the aisle. Her brow is furrowed with concern, her blue- no, not blue, but hazel- eyes boring into me questioningly.

No, I'm not okay. I'm definitely not okay, but there's no way I'm going to say that now. Not while my tired, fear-addled brain keeps adding a touch of frost to Six's voice- turning her hazel eyes to blue and bleaching her raven-black hair to a shiny blonde. Not while I can still here Nine's voice in my head, see his cold, calculating midnight-black eyes. Not while the sting of betrayal is still fresh in my mind. After all, it happened before, didn't it? Who's to say it won't again? I force myself to ponder this for a moment and then look up to realize that Six is still staring at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.

"Yea, I'm fine." The lie flows easily, and I can't help but feel a twinge of guilt. After all, we _had_promised to be honest with each other. "It was just a…" I trail off, trying to decide what to say. "It was nothing. Never mind." Another lie, but I don't have any other choice. Six doesn't reply, and I inwardly breathe a sigh of relief. I know though, that while I may have temporarily appeased her, she still doesn't believe me.

The others don't pay me any attention- Nine and Seven are talking softly in a corner while Ten listens to her iPod. Eight is sitting to my right, reading a book whose title I can't make out. On my other side is Sam, who's looking directly at me, as if waiting for me to talk to him. I turn to ask him what he wants when I realize he isn't looking at me at all, but rather at something just over my right shoulder. I look over at Eight, who is still flipping through her book, seemingly engrossed, and then back at Sam, who is equally so. It looks like the Eagle has his sights set on new prey. I do my best to suppress a smile, but my amusement ends up getting the better of me.

I look across the cabin at Six, and to my surprise catch her looking at me as well. I tilt my head slightly to the left, indicating the still-oblivious Sam. She smiles, mouthing the words, "I know", before focusing her attention back on her notebook.

Despite my all too vivid dream, or perhaps because of it, the exchange sets off yet another battle in my head. I'm happy for Sam, of course, that is, assuming that Eight reciprocates his feelings. I hope so, for his sake. But I know that that's not the only reason I do. As much as I hate to admit it to myself, I know that Sam's attraction to Eight will cause him to move on from Six. And there's a part of me- a large part of me- that selfishly wants nothing more than to see that happen. I know I shouldn't, with all the stuff that Sam's been through, but… it's not that simple. It's pretty obvious from the way he's staring at Eight that one of the, if not the main reason he's interested in her is because she's, to put it as Sam might, 'swimsuit material'. No doubt Sam's hoping we'll go swimming in Australia. Sam was like that with Six too, although, to be fair, so was I at first until I got to know her better and other things drew us together.

For some reason what Sam said back in Florida about how it was so unfair that I liked Six too because I already had 'the hottest girlfriend in Ohio' pops into my head. Maybe it's because he's got a point. I _do _have a girlfriend, assuming, of course, that she doesn't turn me in to the FBI again. But then I realize why I suddenly remembered that. Just now, the way I was thinking about Six- how I don't want to lose her to somebody else- it's the first time I've done that without feeling guilty, like I was betraying Sarah. She betrayed me first, of course, but now I finally feel that sense of release, like her influence isn't shackling me, holding me back, anymore. I feel better now- even if I am selfishly motivated; I still want Sam to be happy, which would also sort out this whole mess. That much settled, I close my eyes and let sleep take me again.

_Everything is black. I turn slowly in a circle, but I can see nothing, hear nothing, and feel nothing. I'm just a disembodied mind floating in a void. Then suddenly the darkness lightens slightly, and I can see that I'm in a dark grey room. It's completely empty except for me. Me and whatever that… thing… is in the corner. I approach it cautiously, ready to act. It swoops suddenly at me, catching me unprepared and sending me crashing against the back wall. I get up slowly and see it swooping over me again. I flail at it desperately, but my hands pass right through it. It hovers directly in front of me, and before my eyes splits into two identical copies of itself, which in turn split as well until the entire room is filled with what must be thousands of them. I fight to keep control of myself, resisting the urge to charge and attack them. This is just a dream. The others are going to think I've gone crazy if I start screaming and attacking. So I force myself to stay calm and walk into the centre of the room. One of them reaches for me, and everything goes black once more._

I open one eye cautiously, surveying my surroundings. Most of the others are asleep, and the few that were awake don't seem to have noticed my nightmare this time. Relieved, I'm about to ask Sam when we're landing when there's a bump from beneath us and we start to slow down, landing gear screeching against the runway. We come to a stop shortly after ; when we do Crayton opens the door from the cockpit and tells us that we've officially landed in Australia.

"We've made quite good time," he says, "so we have about three or four hours before we're supposed to meet Five. You're welcome to look around the airport a bit if you want, but we'll have to be back here by about 6." I check my watch reflexively- it's 5 o'clock now, so we only have an hour. "Apparently Five's in Canberra, which is a good three hours from here, so we need to leave by 6:10".

We grab our stuff and get off of the plane, entering the main body of the airport. I instinctively scan the faces of the other people in the terminal, but eventually force myself to relax. There's no possible way the Mogs could know we're in Australia.

I stand in the central area of the terminal, trying to decide where to go when Eight comes up from behind me and grabs my arm.

"We need to talk," she mutters, leading me over to a pair of seats at the next gate over. She sits across from me, studying my expression.

"Well?" I ask impatiently. "What is it?"

She seems to come out of a fog, her eyes re-focusing. "So what kind of nightmares have you been having?"

"Sorry?" I ask, pretending to be confused. How does she know about them? She had her nose in that book the whole time- she didn't even notice Sam gawking at her.

She rolls her eyes impatiently. "The nightmares on the plane, of course. You had two of them."

"Well if you were paying so much attention then how come you didn't hear me tell Six they were nothing?" I retort, folding my arms defensively.

"How stupid do you think I am?" she asks, annoyed. "Six might have believed you, but I'm not that gullible. Why don't you just tell me what's going on so I can help you?"

I think about it briefly and then decide I might as well tell her. She'll keep bugging me if I don't, and maybe she actually knows something about the mysterious shadow-figure.

I quickly recount the two dreams, deliberately leaving Six- or whoever that girl was- out of the first one. I don't feel comfortable telling anyone else that.

"Victoria never told me about anything or anybody who could fit that description," she replies, tapping her chin with her index finger thoughtfully. "I'd suggest asking Nine, since he seems to know the most about that kind of stuff, but I'm guessing you probably don't want to."

I nod my head in agreement. Nine's already paranoid enough, and telling him about the dream won't help matters.

"In that case…" she says, taking the time to find words, "you could always ask Crayton, but his need-to-know policy with information would mean he probably wouldn't tell you even if he knew." Then her face suddenly lights up with inspiration. "Do you think Six might know?" she asks. "I mean, she's almost as… well, bloodthirsty," she says, her voice suddenly dropping to a whisper, "as Nine, so she would probably have—"

"I hate to break up this cozy gathering, but I thought I heard somebody say my name."

I look up to see Six standing behind Eight, looking very annoyed. She seems almost unfamiliar for a second, and then it hits me. The frosty tone in her voice, the look of steel on her face- she looks just like the Six in my dream.


	12. Superstitious Suspicion

**A/N: Disclaimer in Chapter One. Well, this chapter came a little bit quicker than some of the others, so I'm making progress. This is actually the longest one yet, so more good news. I just wanted to thank everybody who was reviewed this story so far- for the most part you guys have been very positive and I really appreciate it. A (slightly belated) happy Canada Day to my fellow Canadians, and a (slightly early) happy Fourth of July to all of the Americans out there. I hope you enjoy Chapter 12.  
><strong>

**Eight:**

I whirl around when I hear Six's voice to see her standing behind me, a regally annoyed look on her face. It has the air of a very well-practiced look- she must use it often. I stand up to face her directly, and am very satisfied to notice that my chin is level with the top of her head.

"We were just talking about how you might be able to help John," I say coolly, staring her in the eye to gauge her reaction.

"Help him with what?" she asks, the look on her face momentarily switching from annoyance to confusion.

"Oh just the nightmares he had," I say nonchalantly. "Didn't you notice?"

The confusion quickly vanishes, to be replaced by… surprise! Annoyance. She stalks towards me, her glare defying all odds by becoming even more deadly. I glance back quickly at John, only to find his seat empty. He must have left, not wanting to get any more involved in this. I realize now that I probably shouldn't have aggravated Six, but I can hardly back down now.

She stops just in front of me, her look forcing me to involuntarily step back. I don't think it's a Legacy, though. She's just that intimidating naturally, I guess. I may be taller than her, but I can't match her sheer ferocity and… protectiveness. Then I realize- she's only acting this way because she thinks I'm a threat to her. I'm trying to figure out how to explain that that isn't my intention when she speaks.

"As a matter of fact, I did. I also noticed some other things while you were busy reading. Things that could have interested you, if only you hadn't had your head stuck in your book."

She takes another step forward as she speaks, spitting the last word in my face like venom.

All thoughts of apologies or explanations vanish from my head, covered by a haze of anger. I know perfectly well what she's talking about and I'm not going to let her attack Sam like that.

"You mean Sam? That's just a shame for you, isn't it? I mean, you must be so used to him padding after you- I'm sure it comes as a real shock to see him lose interest so… abruptly."

I know I'm being harsh, not least to poor Sam, but I couldn't stop myself even if I wanted to. I force myself to turn around and walk away from her before I do something I'll regret, but I don't make it more than a couple of steps before she pulls me back telekinetically.

She looks confused now more than angry, and I no longer find her intimidating.

"You misunderstand me," she says slowly, as if trying to understand it herself. "Sam is a nice guy who's had some tough things happen to him." She says this softly, and what looks like a hint of guilt passes quickly through her wavering tone before passing. "He doesn't deserve to be ignored by somebody like you who's too busy butting her head in on other people's business!" The volume of her voice increases steadily throughout this last sentence, and the last few words are practically screamed in my face. That draws the attention of several other people, who turn to look at us, but they wisely decide not to interfere.

"Look," I say, trying to sound both firm and somewhat apologetic, "the reason I'm worried about John is because he's one of us. Because if something happens to him it's going to be that much harder for us to defeat Setràkus Ra. Not because I have any special interest in him. Understand?"

I must have come across as patronizing, because instead of accepting my explanation she gives me a telekinetic shove, sending me several steps backwards, and then storms away. Almost literally, as her anger causes a small windstorm to form around her, ruffling the newspapers of people sitting nearby and tipping over a garbage can, spilling its contents everywhere.

I leave as well, deliberately walking in the opposite direction, deep in thought. Struggling to… well, not understand, but realize Sam's feelings for me. I understand it far too well- not to sound arrogant, but I've seen it all too often before. Six has one thing right though- Sam is a nice guy, from what I know of him. She sounded guilty, though, like she was responsible for some of the things that had happened to him. Maybe that's why she wants him to be happy.

Regardless of how nice Sam is, however, it's too early for me to tell if I'll just end up going through everything all over again with him. The logical part of me tells me I probably will, citing his behaviour on the plane, but then part of me thinks that he deserves a chance. That maybe the reason he's still focused on my appearance is because I've been too busy distancing myself from him for him to get to know me better.

It all comes back to Victoria, really. She always told me to be careful not to get involved with the guys at my school because human-Loric relationships typically didn't work well. Besides, we'd be moving somewhere else in a couple of months anyways, so it just wasn't worth it.

So maybe all that distancing made what would happen somewhat my fault, because the superficial stuff was all that anybody really saw. Having figured this much out, I finally come to the decision to give Sam a chance. I mean, the worst thing that could happen is—

"Watch where you're going!" somebody says as I walk into them, too deep in thought to pay attention to where I'm going. I look up to see a disgruntled Nine, picking up his magazine from the floor.

"Sorry about that," I say. "I was just thinking about something, and I didn't notice you until… well," I trail off, suddenly unsure of myself.

"That's okay. What were you thinking about?" he asks inquisitively, placing his magazine back on the rack, where I see its title for the first time- 'The Advantages of Total War'. I can't say I'm surprised.

"I was just… um…"

What was I thinking about? The truth jumps to the front of my mind, as usual, but I force it back and say the next thing that I think of.

"It was just this dream I had," I say offhandedly, trying to subtly discourage further questions.

I should have known that subtlety wouldn't work on Nine.

"So what happened in this dream of yours?"

I sigh inwardly, hoping I'll be able to stall long enough to make up something plausible, when my overtired brain finally realizes that I don't have to. Instead, I tell Nine, in glorious detail, John's dream, except I switch Nine out of it and put John in instead. It works perfectly- Nine doesn't suspect anything.

He nods knowingly when I finish, and then explains. "I'm fairly certain that the shadowy figure you saw was Phobos, one of Setràkus Ra's lieutenants."  
>"But then why was he in my dream?" I ask, confused as I pace around the terminal. Nine struggles to keep up, and eventually kicks in his enhancement to catch up with me.<p>

"The lieutenants," he says, pausing to take a breath, "they can manipulate your emotions and expose your fears. If Phobos has truly appeared in your dream, he is using his power to try to paralyze you with your fears."

"So," I say, trying to piece this all together in my head, "that means I'm scared of Four?"

I don't say what it must really mean- this was John's dream, so he must be scared of Nine for some reason.

"No," he says sharply. "It's not that simple. Most fears are more abstract- people tend to be scared of things like abandonment, or decision-making. "If Four was in your dream," he concludes, stopping to face me directly, "it's not because you're scared of him _per se_, but because Phobos thinks that he can use something about Four to scare you."

So Nine was in John's dream because something about him frightens John. I'm curious as to what John's scared of, but I sense that asking him wouldn't be tactful.

"Thanks," I finally say to Nine, who's walking away but, spins back around when he hears my voice. "I feel better now- and I think I know what I'm scared of."  
>Thankfully, for once he doesn't press for the details. I check my watch as I walk away and am surprised to see that it's already 5:57. I need to get back to meet Crayton and the others. I walk quickly back to the meeting point, arriving just on time.<p>

They are waiting just outside of the terminal- I infer from Crayton's absence that they are waiting for him to return. I head out through the sliding doors into the Australian heat and join them in waiting. I walk past John and Six silently, not daring to meet her gaze. I'll have to tell John what Nine told me later, when she isn't around to attack me. I go to stand next to Sam instead, not wanting to interrupt Seven and Ten's conversation. Sam doesn't notice me at first, too busy looking out into the distance at the planes landing on the runway, as well as the occasional one taking off. I wait there until he notices me, surprised.

"It's a nice city, isn't it?" he says softly, a melancholy look on his face.

I look out to where he was looking, but all I see are masses of people coming and going, planes landing noisily and, beyond that, just by the horizon, the beginning of what I know from geography classes to be an enormous desert. I shudder involuntarily, reminded of the desert in my nightmare- the one that simply refused to end. I've never really lived in a big city, so I shouldn't judge, but to me Sydney seems crowded, busy and loud. No wonder Five and his Cèpan are in Canberra and not here.

Nevertheless I say, "Yea, it looks like a really interesting place."

He nods. "My dad… he used to live here, before he got involved with, well, everything. He promised he'd take me here to see it someday, but he never had the chance."

I've never heard Sam talk about his dad before, so I don't really know what he means. Any number of ideas about what Sam's dad might have been involved in flood my mind, and I have to fight them off. It isn't easy, but then pessimism has always been an unfortunate habit of mine. This is Sam, though, so I promise myself that I will not assume the worst of someone who was so close to him. I realize after a second that that means I'll have to try not to hate Six, too. Another challenge for me- as if I didn't already have enough.

"What… was your dad involved in?" I ask tentatively. "Why did it stop him from taking you here?"

Sam cracks a slight smile, lowering his eyes apologetically. "Sorry," he says, "I always forget you guys don't know." He pauses for a second and then continues, sounding more sure of himself. "My father was a Loric ally- in fact he was the one who gave John and his Cèpan their first place to live."

I don't press further. It's obvious what must have happened to Sam's father.

"I'm sorry Sam," I say. "I didn't realize."

He shrugs, trying to stay composed. "It's okay. He's been missing for a while now. I'm not expecting to- it's just closure, really."

Six's statement about Sam having had difficult things happen to him re-enters my mind as Crayton pulls up by the curb, driving a truck that looks eerily similar to the one that we trashed back in Minnesota. Obviously having has father go missing at such a young age must have been traumatic for Sam, but that doesn't explain why Six seemed to feel guilty about it. She seemed to feel that she was responsible for Sam's misfortunes. She must have meant something different- she can't have been involved in something that happened that long ago. Right?

I hop into the backseat, still unsure of what to think. Crayton starts driving west towards Canberra, and I realize how tired I am. I really should have slept longer on the plane, but my book was just too good to put down for long. I lean back, relaxing, and the world around becomes a blur as my eyes slowly close. Just one thought remains in my head as I drift off to sleep:

_I have to talk to John. I have to talk to John. I have to talk to John…_

_I find myself standing in the middle of a typical suburban street- there are block houses filling both sides all around me, but no light creeps through their windows. It's the middle of the night, and the only light is from the overhead crescent moon and a lone streetlight on the other end of the street. Despite my enhancement, I find it difficult to see more than a few meters away from me. I take no comfort in the darkness, even though I know it would be even harder for somebody else to see me. It makes me anxious, the thought that a scout, or a soldier could be lurking somewhere, out of si— Phobos!_

_My brain immediately kicks into gear as I realize just how devious Phobos is. I was fully aware that I was dreaming, and yet it still took me a good thirty seconds to remember that all of this is his doing._

_I walk slowly towards the light, despite knowing that that's where Phobos will spring his 'trap'. It's because I know from experience that I won't wake up until I experience whatever he wants me to, and I'm going to go crazy if I have to stay on this barren street for any longer. _

_I stop in the middle of the pool of light, waiting, muscles tensing expectantly, but… nothing happens. No translucent specter lunges at me, a troop of Mogadorians doesn't descend from the sky, guns blazing, the ground doesn't vanish from beneath my feet, dropping me into a fiery hellhole. It's just me and this street, and it's really getting on my nerves. By now I'm far too anxious for it to be natural, and it occurs to me that maybe this is his plan. He'll make me wait it out, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but my thoughts for company, and then when I least expect it, all hell will break loose. _

"_Eight?"_

_The voice comes from behind me, and I whirl around reflexively, shoving the speaker backwards telekinetically. Only… the speaker is John, or at least it looks like him, and he absorbs the energy of my shove, not even recoiling slightly. I know of course, that it isn't him- that it can't be him, but I play along, hoping to get this over with quickly._

"_Oh, hey John, fancy seeing you here," I say with obvious false cheeriness. Meanwhile I back away slowly, trying to look for an escape route should I want it._

_John rolls his eyes, but fidgets nervously, glancing behind him, like it's a challenge for him to hold his ground. He looks almost as suspicious as I am, and I find myself somewhat impressed, albeit unwillingly, by Phobos' ability to impersonate my friends so convincingly. It's also disturbing, of course, but I still have to remind myself that he isn't real, for fear that I'll forget._

"_Knock it off," he says impatiently. "I know you're not real, so you might as well give it up now."_

_It's a nice try, but I'm not about to be fooled that easily._

"_How do I know you're not the one who's not real?" I shoot back, trying to decide if it's worth making a run for it._

"_Well, for starters," he says, annoyance evident in his voice, "do you recognize this place?"_

"_No. What's your point?" I snap, walking around him slowly, having noticed an ajar door on the other side of the road. _

"_As it happens, I do know where we are- the house behind you," he says, gesturing, "is the one that the Mogs burned down in Florida because they thought me and Six were in it."_

_I turn to look where he indicated, and sure enough a burnt-out shell of a house sits there, looking quite dilapidated. I could have sworn it wasn't there before, though, which serves to confirm my suspicions. Even in dreams, things don't just appear like that. _

"_So? What's your point?" _

_I really should just give in and get it over with, but my innate Loric paranoia is reluctant._

"_If I know where we are, and you don't, then doesn't that prove that this is my dream, because it's happening inside of my head?"_

_Admittedly, he has a point, but I know, obviously, that I'm not some construct of Phobos'. Which means, logically, by the process of elimination, that he must be one. Still, though… this reminds me of the first time I 'met' John, during another one of these dreams. Only that one was real. Which makes me wonder: could this one be too?_

_Besides, I don't feel at all scared or frightened. My only other Phobos-affected dream had my heart pounding, had me worried, anxious and frightened the whole time. This definitely feels different._

"_Fair enough. But… John- I'm just as real as you are."_

_He smirks, but looks uncertain. It's funny how now we've switched roles- now I'm the one trying to convince him that I'm real, instead of the other way around._

"_You expect me to believe that?" he asks half-heartedly._

"_Look," I say, exasperated, perhaps unfairly, "just hear me out, okay?"_

_I quickly relate to John (or at least, what I really hope is John) the details of my talk with Nine: how Phobos is one of the lieutenants of Setràkus Ra, and can prey on fears, and, with emphasis, how the appearance of a person in a dream doesn't indicate fear of them, but that Phobos thinks he can use them to scare you._

_This last point seems to make John feel better, as he looks calmer. Far too calm, really. All I told him, in effect, was that he wasn't scared of Nine. So why does he look so… happy?_

"_Thanks," he says, a smile on his face for the first time. "That reminds me- I wanted to…well, apologize for Six, I guess. It's nothing personal, she just sometimes get a little…"_

"_Territorial?" I offer. I can't say I would blame her, to be honest. We are a group of six teenagers traveling together, after all._

"_Yeah," he says, only the faintest hint of a blush on his face. "Anyway, I explained everything to her and she's calmed down now."_

"_You should tell her about Phobos, too," I say, out of self-preservation more than anything._

_He nods. "I will."  
>We stand there for a moment in silence, when suddenly, out of nowhere, a handgun appears to my right, floating in the air. <em>

_John turns to look at it, smiling. "Speak of the devil," he mutters under his breath. _

_He probably thinks I can't hear him, but sometimes enhancement comes in handy._

"_I think I have to go now," he says, before walking out of the light, into the shadow, and disappearing. The gun goes with him, as swiftly and silently as it appeared._

_I'm alone in the light for the shortest of moments before the streetlight fizzles out and everything goes black._

I open one eye cautiously, surveying my surroundings. I'm still in the back of the truck, and seeing as we're still moving, we haven't arrived yet.

I lock eyes with John, giving him the slightest of nods. Just a confirmation that he's not going crazy.

I reach down for my backpack, rummaging through it for my book. I finished most of it on the plane, but I had left the last couple of chapters for later, and now I'm curious to find out what happens. I've just located my page and begun to read when we pass a 'Welcome to Canberra' sign on the road. I put it away, annoyed- if we're that close, there's no point in starting to read.

Crayton glances up at the GPS mounted on the windshield, and makes a sharp left turn, throwing everybody to the right. We're driving along a quiet residential street now, and I'm expecting us to stop any minute. Crayton keeps driving, though, and after a while I notice that we're going uphill. I look carefully into the distance, and I finally see where we're headed. There's a mansion on the top of the hill, complete with gardens, towers, spires and crenellated walls. It looks quite a bit like a castle, actually. It must have cost a fortune to buy- most if not all of the gems Five and his Cèpan got would have gone towards it. An investment that large also suggests that they've been there for a while, not moving around like we were all supposed to. They're incredibly lucky that the Mogs haven't swooped down on them yet- surely it must be obvious to them that this is where Five is living. Crayton seems to have come to the same conclusion, because he accelerates, muttering, "Idiots," under his breath.

We finally pull to a stop in the middle of the mansion's massive driveway, and Crayton turns to face us.

"I don't like this," he says. "It looks like Five and Alexis have been here for a while, and that makes it likely that the Mogs might know they're here. I want Six, Eight and Nine to come with me- the rest of you should stay here. Nine, if we get ambushed, I want you to tell Four telepathically that he, Sam and the girls need to get out of here. Four, if you get that message, you get out of here right away. No heroics. We'll meet up in Sydney tomorrow if we need to- if something happens to us and we can't meet you, you have the pendants in the trunk, and instructions on what to do in my bag. Hopefully it won't come to that and I'm just being paranoid, but better safe than sorry. If everything goes as planned, we'll be back here in a few minutes."

I'm sure we all look somewhat shaken after that speech, but Ella looks particularly nervous.

"But everything's going to be okay, right?" she asks anxiously.

Crayton nods. "I sure hope so."

With that he hops out of the car, closing the door behind him. I make my way carefully past Marina and Ella and join Six and Nine outside. John's there too- he hugs Six, whispering something in her ear. She nods, and he gets back in the truck. Sam has claimed the driver's seat, and Four is up riding shotgun.

The three of us Crayton chose take places around him, like bodyguards, as we walk up towards the mansion. I look back at the truck and see a steely look of preparation on Sam's face, and I know that whatever happens to us, they'll be okay.

The mansion is even more stunning and extravagant from close up, and I once again find myself amazed by the sheer amount of money it must have cost. Something doesn't seem right- Five's Cèpan should have known better than to live someplace like this.

Six and Nine exchange resigned looks, as if they know full well what's going to happen. They seem battle-ready, and I wonder for the first time why Crayton chose me to come with them. Six and Nine are both amazing fighters, and will be able to hold their own against even a couple hundred Mogs, probably, but I don't have any battle-useful Legacies. It doesn't make any sense that I'm here.

Crayton knocks on the front door, which is answered immediately by a balding, middle-aged man. I relax slightly- he's not a Mogadorian. We'll be okay after all.

"Five's in here, getting ready," he says, a slight Australian accent evident in his voice.

He pushes a door open at the other end of the entrance hall, and we step into a large, ornate room. That's when the wall explodes.


	13. The Firemaster

**A/N: Disclaimer in Chapter One. I actually lost my journal with my mostly-finished first draft of this chapter in it for about a week, so I'm fairly happy that it turned out decently anyway. At least, I think it has. Sorry (again) for the long wait- you guys must think I'm a pathological liar when I keep saying this, but I will get the next chapter out sooner. I promise. Anyway, here's chapter 13. Enjoy.  
><strong>

**Six:**

I roll instinctively to the side, avoiding the brunt of the explosion, but the force of it still sends me skidding against the ground painfully. As I get up and survey the room, I realize not only that we've been ambushed, but also just how good of an ambush this was. The man who let us in- whoever he is- slammed the door we came in through, and it won't budge. The only other doors out of the room are on the far side, and packs of Mogs are charging into the room through them. I realize after a second that it's even worse than that, though. Every single one of the Mogs bears armour with a symbol emblazoned on it- every single one of them is an Elite. We're also indoors, which means that weather manipulation will be useless, although most Elites would just shrug it off easily anyways. Crayton reacts quickly, whipping out an assault rifle, drops to one knee and starts firing- a couple Elites go down, but most of them just shrug off the bullets. It's only now that I realize my biggest weakness. With only two Legacies plus telekinesis to draw on, I can be neutralized quite easily in the wrong circumstances. Nine takes action, jumping up onto the ceiling, holding a pair of swords and starting to exchange blows with the Mogs while upside down- they're so disoriented that he hacks through a dozen or so before they realize where he is. I turn to look at Eight, who shrugs, looking about as useless as I feel. We stand beside Crayton, fighting hand to hand with the Elites, while trying to keep out of Crayton's line of fire, but there are too many of them. Crayton's gun clicks, having run out of ammo. Rather than reload it, he grabs another one from his back (just how many does he carry with him?) and continues firing, but at the rate he's using ammo he's going to run out soon. I look around the room anxiously, trying to find something to use as a weapon. I detach the chandelier from the ceiling out of desperation- it crushes a few of the Elites, but it won't be enough. Finally I find something useful- a fireplace burning discreetly on the opposite side of the room. I focus on the flame, pulling it to me from across the room. A streak of fire erupts between me and it, incinerating any Elites with the poor fortune to be in the way. I look up- Nine's still on the ceiling, so the coast is clear. I gather the flame around me in a circle, my skin glowing orange but not burning- and then thrust it outward in a wide arc. This time it covers most of the room, but it's much thinner. Rather than incinerating the Mogs instantly, it sets them ablaze, the flames jumping eagerly from one to the next. They leave piles of ash behind them, coating the floor. Eight gawks at me, a look of awe on her face. I turn to glare at her and she looks away, obviously still annoyed at me.

I look away too, turning to survey the carnage the flames left behind in the room. The floor is covered with a layer of ash several inches deep, and the walls have been scorched from the heat, but the room itself was otherwise unaffected. The Mogs on the other hand… there aren't any left in the middle of the room, where the flames were thickest, but as I look at the corners more closely…

It's an entire squadron of them. Elites, the tips of their swords glowing orange, prepared to channel the energy of the fire I tried to use against them. They have a different symbol, a 'V', than the lightning channeling Elites I encountered back in West Virginia. I make a mental note of this- if I know which Elites are immune to which Legacies, I'll know if I can safely attack them.

It should have occurred to me that with this many Elites in the room, a bunch of them were bound to be able to channel fire. I was desperate, though, and I didn't think about the consequences.

Suddenly I hear a soft thump beside me. Nine has dropped from the ceiling, landing right next to me.

"What now?" he asks in a business-like tone, sheathing his swords and pulling a long metal staff from his belt.

"I have no clue," I say honestly. "Do you think you'd be able to take them like you did the others?"

I feel bad asking him to do this all by himself, but since I'm out of tricks and Eight wasn't that helpful in the first place we don't have a choice. I look over again at the Elites. For some reason they haven't attacked us yet, but have merely stayed clumped together in that corner. Maybe they're disoriented, since they weren't expecting one of us to be stupid enough to use Legacies against them. Maybe they know we're powerless against them, and are just waiting for reinforcements to make their victory certain. Either way, we're running out of time.

Nine grips the pole tightly in its middle, like a quarterstaff, and turns away from me to face the horde.

"All by myself?" he asks, frustrated.

"They're fire-immune and we're indoors, Nine. There's nothing I can do."

"I can try," he says, surprisingly calmly. "I'll probably burn if I do, but I know I will if I don't."

With that he launches himself towards them, using the pole like a pole-vaulter would, landing on the far side of them. He lashes out at the closest Elites, catching them by surprise and knocking a couple of the down momentarily before the others converge on him. He only escapes because of his superhuman speed.

He returns, sleeves singed from where he was nearly sliced by their fiery swords.

"Too many," he says, breathing heavily, leaning on the pole for support. "It's hopeless- we don't stand a chance."

What's wrong with him? Out of all of us, he always seemed to be the most aggressive, the one who had the most bloodthirst and lust for their deaths. If he thinks it's hopeless… as much as I hate to admit it he's probably right.

We have more immediate problems, though. Seemingly spurred by Nine's attack, the Elites form a turtle-shell formation in the middle of the room. The front pair let flame consume their entire bodies, forming a fiery barrier between them and us. The others start launching tongues of flame from their swords towards us. The first few miss, burning scorch marks into the marble floor, but it won't take long for their aim to improve.

When the first flame comes close to me I try to push it away with my mind. To my surprise, it works. I didn't know that telekinesis worked on fire, but I'm sure not going to complain.

"Use your telekinesis to push the flames away!" I yell to Eight and Nine, who are running frantically around the room trying to avoid getting hit.

We again stand near Crayton, who has reloaded his gun and is firing into the wall of fire. The bullets don't do much damage though- the intense heat melts them into shapeless lumps of lead that fly off erratically into walls.

Meanwhile the three of us do our best to prevent the streaks of fire the Elites are launching from killing us. I seem to be having more success than the others, perhaps because fire is one of the elements and I feel an affinity to it. Both Eight and Nine look fatigued, though, and flames start to come closer and closer to hitting them before being deflected.

Thankfully, I don't feel fatigue. My confidence grows, and I start to help Eight and Nine deflect the bolts that are headed for them. Despite my success, however, it isn't long before I start to feel the same despair that Nine did earlier. There's no way we can keep this up. Crayton' s bullets have only felled a single Elite so far, and the others' assault is relentless. A fresh wave of hopelessness washes over me suddenly and I lose my focus momentarily, allowing a fiery lance to hit Crayton's shoulder. He cries out in pain, dropping to the ground clutching his sizzling shoulder. I quickly step over him, pulling water from the air and using it to douse him. The skin on his shoulder is a raw, pulsing red, and while he is able to get up, he'll need medical attention soon or else he'll get an infection. If only Marina were here and not back in the truck with John and Sam.

Crayton gets up slowly, and resumes firing while we try to cover him. Thankfully Eight and Nine redoubled their efforts and managed to protect the four of us while I was helping Crayton, but now their fatigue shows more than ever.

I just get back up and start to deflect flames again when I hear a resounding thud. Eight has collapsed to the ground out of exhaustion, and she doesn't look like she'll be getting up any time soon. Nine and me walk closer together to try to fill the gap, but there are just too many of them and too few of us.

Suddenly there's a crash from behind me. My first thought is that Nine has gone down as well, but when I turn to look he's still standing. I look over my shoulder quickly, still keeping up my telekinesis, and see that the door we came in through has shattered, sending wood splinters flying everywhere. Thankfully the Elites are just as surprised as we are, as they stop attacking us in shock. Walking through the doorframe, flames flickering from his hands is John, followed by Sam, who's carrying a ridiculously large gun that looks way too heavy for him to lift, and then a sleek-skinned, bipedal furry creature with needle-sharp claws that must be Bernie Kosar.

"Idiots," Crayton mutters quietly from his position on the ground. The Elites resume their assault, and I'm so stunned by John's appearance that I don't think to do anything. John simply holds up his glowing hand and all of the fire in the room flares out instantly. Bernie Kosar growls when he sees the fire, and morphs into a scaly lizard-like creature with massive teeth. He then charges the Elites as Sam starts to unload his gun into them, aiming carefully so to avoid Bernie. The Elites glow with flames again, but Bernie's scales must be fireproof, because they don't seem to affect him. He bites off an Elite's hand, snarling viciously, but then the Elites turn their swords on him, and he has to retreat quickly. Sam's bullets prove to be just as useless as Crayton's were, but all of my attention is on John. The Elites launch another salvo of flames, which he dissipates as easily as the first.

As great as it is that John and Sam showed up to save our lives, we still seem to be at an impasse. John's only Legacy that could harm the Elites is his laser-like Lumen, but they are immune to fire. So long as those runes on their armour glow, I can't see how we can win this battle.

John steps forward in front of Sam, his blue eyes glowing, rather unnervingly, bright orange. He points at the nearest Elite- a streak of fire travels from the Elite's armour to the tip of John's finger, causing him to glow a faint orange. He repeats the process, pointing at Elite after Elite, draining them of whatever Loric energy they had possessed. He now glows a blinding orange that makes it hurt to look directly at him. The Elites, on the other hand, no longer have fiery swords or launch bolts of fire.

I turn to look at Nine, who now has a predatory grin on his face. He draws his swords, leaping into the air and landing on the ceiling. He charges towards the power-drained Elites, hacking and slashing his way through them like it's what he was born to do. Of course, I suppose it was.

Sam's bullets find their marks more effectively, and between him, Nine and Bernie they take down most of the Elites easily.

John finally joins the fray, having shaped the flames surrounding his body into a long fiery whip and a shimmering circular shield. He lashes the whip out into the middle of the battle, not caring whether he hits friend or foe. It turns out he didn't have to worry, as the whip slices fiery lines straight through the Elites while leaving Sam untouched despite it seeming to hit him. One of the Elites makes the mistake of charging at John, sword slicing through the air. John sidesteps swiftly and shield-bashes the Elite in the head- flames from the shield catch, and the Elite burns rapidly, becoming yet another pile of ash.

It's clear now that this is a battle we're going to win- the Elites seem to think so as well, as the few of them left alive suddenly turn and run towards the doors they came in through. John simply stamps his foot on the ground, causing pale blue flames to form in front of the doors. The Elites don't even notice them until they turn, like their brethren, to ash.

All of the Elites gone, John lets the flames die away, walking back towards the rest of us. Sam follows wearily behind him, letting the gun drag against the floor, and Bernie Kosar pads along behind him, in the shape of a dog once more.

"You know you shouldn't have come, right?" Crayton says reproachfully.

"I thought it was the right thing to do," John replies calmly, "and so did Sam, so we came. Marina and Ella are still in the truck- they've probably driven away by now, actually, so we didn't endanger anybody but ourselves. It was our choice to make."

"Don't get me wrong," Crayton says, holding up his hands defensively, "you saved our lives, so I'm not going to complain. But in the future, remember that at least one of us needs to live through this to activate the bomb. If one of us goes down, we can still beat Setråkus Ra. In the future, we can't take the risk that all of us get killed at the same time."

"I understand," John says, but I don't believe him. What Crayton said makes sense, but I don't think John will recognize that- he would feel responsible if one of us were to die, even if it weren't his fault. It's like what happened to Sam- if Nine hadn't stopped him, John probably would have charged right back into the Mog base and gotten himself killed.

"On the bright side," Crayton says cheerfully, "you found your Master Legacy. You're a Firemaster. I think you've pretty much figured out what that means."

John nods again, allowing droplets of flame to spark on the tips of his fingers.

I'm about to suggest that we get going when I feel that sense of despair again. It's stronger now than it was before, and it starts to overwhelm me. It feels different, though. Not despair, so much, but terror. The others seem to feel it too- Eight takes a step backwards cautiously, and even Nine seems uncertain.

The door on the other side of the room springs open. I activate my invisibility reflexively, and to my surprise notice that even though I can sense the increasing levels of terror in the room, they don't have any effect on me. The newcomer is a short, hooded figure, who I immediately recognize as Deimos. When I focus I can feel the waves of terror flowing from him, which confirms my suspicion. The terror spikes suddenly, causing the others to recoil, moving away from him. I pick up a sword from the floor and creep slowly towards Deimos, hoping I can kill him before the others go crazy from the terror he is forcing on them. Hopefully he _can _be killed. When I start to get close to him, his terror breaks through whatever protection being invisible grants me, and I find myself running away from him. I really, really hate feeling useless. Out of frustration more than anything else I chuck a pair of fireballs at John, who's been forced to his knees by the oppressive emotion. They become visible as soon as they leave my hand, so I move quickly so it's not obvious to Deimos where I'm standing. The fireballs slam into John's arm, and spread to cover his body with a thin layer of flame. He shakes his head groggily, as if waking from a trance. I throw another pair, and then another, and before long flames are dancing from his entire body excitedly. John stands up, splaying his fingers and shooting bolts of fire all over the room. Wherever the fire makes contact with the ash from the dead Elites a fiery bird- a phoenix- rises and swoops to attack Deimos. Sam suddenly snaps out of his trance, hefting a pair of swords and charging towards Deimos as well. John then turns and sprints with Sam towards him, lashing out with his recently re-formed whip. Deimos sidesteps neatly and points directly at John, launching a crackling red beam of lightning at him. It passes right through John's shield, hitting him squarely in the chest. For the tiniest fraction of the second a look of shock appears on John's face before he crumples to the ground.

It takes all I have to suppress a shriek of horror, but I force myself not to. There's noth- there's no- I can't help him! I have to be strong. That's who I am, right? Out of John, Sam and me, I've always been the tough one. Because I've had to be. Because I'd have been killed if I wasn't. I rush to his side, kneeling down to check for a heartbeat. The flames that I've already become so used to seeing around him are gone- as are the phoenixes he summoned.

He'll be okay. He _has _to be okay. I'm not thinking about what it means if he's not.

I can feel his artery pulsing slowly underneath my fingers. I breathe a sigh of relief. He _will _be okay. We just need to get him to Marina soon.

Sam stops his charge abruptly, staring, petrified, at John's limp form. Even Deimos seems shocked that John went down so easily. I wish I had some way to signal Sam, to tell him that it's all right, that John's okay, that he should keep fighting. But I can't without giving up my invisibility, and that would mean subjecting myself to the terror emanating from Deimos.

Unsurprisingly, Deimos refocuses on the battle before Sam does, shooting a bolt at Sam identical to the one that felled John. Some instinct of Sam's kicks in, causing him to roll swiftly to the side, dodging the bolt. Deimos fires another bolt towards the others- this one is a deeper, crimson, red, and while it moves rapidly, I can actually track its flight.

I don't like what I see. I get the sense that the bolt that Deimos hit John with wasn't meant to kill him- at least not immediately. This one, however- a deeper red, larger, slower, it seems like it was meant to kill. My eyes follow its path across the room.

It's heading straight for Eight. Then suddenly Sam's there, having dove across the room, holding a sword he found on the ground. He lunges at the bolt, and it slams right into the blade of his sword, which is just inches from Eight, who is curled into the fetal position, her eyes glazed over with fear. Sam's sword now has crackling lines of energy running around it, and he gets up with a determined look on his face. He throws it end-over-end at Deimos, who seems too stunned from Sam's dive to react. It plunges, with remarkable accuracy, point-first into his chest, red sparks flying from where it made contact. Deimos staggers backwards momentarily, his eyes widened in surprise at the hilt of the sword protruding from his chest, before vanishing in a swirling black cloud.

The sudden silence is just as shocking as any sudden noise could be. Deimos is gone, killed or maimed or driven away by Sam, but the others aren't waking up. They still stare straight ahead, eyes open, staring, but their expressions are vacant, their minds numbed by the sheer violence of emotion that was forced upon them.

Sam walks over to the sword he threw at Deimos, his walking the loudest sound in the room. It still crackles with red lightning, but when he runs his hand cautiously down the blade it doesn't affect him.

"Cool," he says, slashing it through the air a couple times, "I've always wanted a magic weapon."

The room he's talking to might as well be empty- I'm too shocked to fully comprehend what he's saying, and the others are still comatose.

"Where did you learn to throw a sword like that?" I blurt out bluntly.

Sam shrugs. "Instinct, I guess," he says, smiling. "After all, I've seen you guys do it enough times."

"It's a good thing you pay so much attention to us," I say gratefully, "because it just saved out lives."

I really need to stop being so surprised by unexpected events that I can't think clearly. If I go on like this I'll be dead by the end of the week, Sam's newfound weapons prowess or not.

Sam walks over tentatively to John's limp body, crouching down to examine him.

"He'll be okay, right?" Sam asks hopefully.

"I think so," I reply. "Are Marina and Ella still where we left them?"

Sam nods, relieved. "Assuming they haven't panicked and driven away."

"I'll go and get them, then," I say, getting to my feet slowly.

"It's okay," Sam says, placing a hand on my arm. "I'll get them. You just stay here and – um… make sure no more Mogs come."

"Thanks for giving me the easy job," I say sarcastically.

"Hey," he says with a shrug, "you'll be better at it than I would."

I don't argue. It's tough to argue with people when they're right, after all.

"What if they aren't there?" Sam asks suddenly, turning back when just a step from the door.

"Just come back, I guess. They'll be there, though. I seriously doubt Marina can drive."

Sam nods, walking through the door, leaving me alone to watch over my unconscious friends. It's a good thing I'm used to spending time alone.

I sit down against the wall next to the fireplace. It doesn't look right without a fire burning in it, so I restore one to it. The light makes the room feel more cozy, somehow, or at least less cavernous and empty.

Empty. The room isn't empty; I'm not alone in here, but I might as well be. I really do hate being alone. It's quite boring, since I've already had all of the conversations one can have with oneself during my time in captivity, and I'm all out of interesting things to think about. That's why it's been so nice to have other people to talk to these last couple of months.

I guess that has something to do with why I hated feeling so useless in the battle. Sure, my invisibility kept me safe, but to what end? I couldn't command fire like John, or defy gravity like Nine, or even throw a sword like Sam. I was completely superfluous.

I shudder involuntarily. It was like my nightmare, in a way. Walking down that deserted beach, past that eerie meld of John and Sam and the pale blue eyes of a smug blonde. Because that's my greatest fear: abandonment, being useless, superfluity- call it what you will. And Phobos preyed on it easily. Deimos did too, even if he didn't realize.

But that's what this whole war is about, isn't it? The lieutenants: fear and terror. Just two sides of the same, brutally effective, crippling coin. Setràkus Ra really does know how to undermine people's wills. Because he knows everybody's scared of something.

There's a sudden flash of movement from the other side of the room. My telekinesis kicks in reflexively, whipping a sword in the direction of the movement. It clatters noisily against the wall, falling to the floor. There wasn't anybody there.

"Did you just throw a sword at me?"

I whip around to see John sitting up slowly, a confused look in his eyes.

"No, of course not! I just thought I saw a- something over- never mind," I say hurriedly.

"What happened?" he asks, standing up and looking around the room. "What happened to everybody?"

"Well," I start, "after Deimos knocked you unconscious, he used his power to neutralize the others as well. Sam killed him, but they still wouldn't wake up, so he went to get Marina. More importantly, though," I add matter-of-factly, "are you okay? That was a nasty bolt of lightning that Deimos hit you with."

John shakes his head rapidly as if to wake himself up from a dream.

"Yea, I feel fine now. I'm just a little dizzy, but I'll be okay."

"Good." I say. I pause for a second, and then decide to continue. "You know," I say cautiously, "Crayton did have a point. You shouldn't have risked your life for us."

John sighs, and then walks towards me, stopping no more than a foot from me, placing his hands on my shoulders. He lets them run down my arms slowly, causing goosebumps to rise on my skin, before grasping my hands in his.

"Six," he says softly, taking another step forward so that only inches separate us, "there's something that you need to know. What I did today, I would do again without hesitating. For you."

"Are you implying that I need to be protected?" I ask skeptically. "That's kind of funny, because I have some very… vivid… memories of beating you up- repeatedly, I might add, during training."

"So do I," he says quietly before continuing. "However, there _is_ an enormous army of heavily armed aliens who want nothing more than to kill you. I'd say you need all of the help you can get."

"You know," I say, smiling playfully, "I could argue that point, but I really don't feel like it right now."

With that I take a step towards him, but he steps back at the same time, leaving us the same tantalizing distance apart, and I can see hesitancy in his sea-blue eyes.

"You were lying, weren't you," he says softly. "When you told me that Katarina had told you that she had had multiple loves of Lorien."

I force myself to meet his gaze. Avoiding it won't change anything.

"Yes," I say sheepishly. "I did." And then, after a pause, because it would bug me otherwise: "How did you know?"

I expect to see accusation blossom on his face. Suspicion, betrayal, maybe even downright anger. Instead, he smiles. It's a genuine, relieved, unrestrained smile.

"Because this feels pretty permanent to me."

And then he's the one stepping forward and I'm not stepping back and our lips meet and everything else in the world vanishes from my mind, overwhelmed by the sheer happiness I feel, all caused by this one moment. And it's a moment that doesn't seem to end, that neither of us _wants _to ever end, but I'm starting to feel dizzy, which must be a sign of oxygen deprivation, unless it's just my brain trying to express the sheer joy that I'm feeling. But then suddenly there's a voice from behind me.

"Will you two get a freaking room already?"

**A/N: So there is your Four/Six moment, as requested. I really hope that turned out well, as I'm worried I will have ruined the story for you guys if it didn't. In that vein, please leave me a review so that I know if you guys liked it. Thanks.**


	14. Five Alive

**A/N: Disclaimer in Chapter One. I don't really have much to say here, except that the official Rise of Nine is coming out in just three weeks now, and that I'm really looking forward to it. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter- and I'm curious to know what you'll think of the final member of the Garde.  
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**Four:**

We break apart hurriedly, and I catch a hint of embarrassment in Six's hazel eyes as she searches out the source of the voice. It doesn't take long- Sam is standing, arms crossed, in the doorway, flanked by Marina and Ella. Ella seems to be failing to suppress a giggle, and even Marina has a slight smirk on her face.

"I take it you've fully recovered, John?" Sam asks pointedly.

I nod, not wanting to provoke him.

"Good," he says tersely. "Go make yourself useful- search the house or something. Maybe you can find something that will tell us what happened to Five and his Cèpan."

I'm taken aback at how quickly Sam has started to give orders, like he's the one in charge. I do as told, though, and leave through the far door. I sneak a look behind me as I go, and see Sam leading Marina over to Eight' subconscious form while Ella chatters excitedly with Six. She seems far more enthused than Six does, and sure enough, when Six sees me looking at her she breaks off the conversation abruptly, walking towards me.

"Mind if I explore with you?" she asks.

"Can't bear to be away from me for more than a moment?" I respond jokingly as we walk out into the hallway that lies beyond the door.

Six rolls her eyes impatiently. I notice that she's gotten rather good at it.

"Actually, I just didn't want to be in the same room as Sam at the moment, if you know what I mean."

"Or Ella, for that matter," she adds as an afterthought.

"Speaking of Ella," I say as we round a corner and walk through another long banquet hall, "what were the two of you talking about back there?"

Another eye-roll, this one expressing Six's disbelief that I'm so stupid. Or something like that- it can be hard to tell sometimes.

"She's a eleven-year old girl who walked on two of her friends kissing, John. What do you _think _she was asking about?"

"Ah- that makes sense, Liz."

"Did you just call me Liz?" Six asks incredulously.

"I just thought that we should be on a first-name basis by now," I say, shrugging.

"So you decide to call me Liz? Are you feeling all right, John?"

"Well I started with Maren-Elizabeth, but that was too long, so then I thought about Mare, but that sounds too close to Marina, which could get confusing, and Elizabeth sounded too British, so I settled on Liz."

Six looks at me like I've gone mad, shaking her head resignedly.

"You know," she says thoughtfully, "if that weren't so cute in some idiotic kind of way I'd probably beat you up for calling me Liz."

I raise a questioning eyebrow. "You really think you could beat me up? With my new super-amazing fire abilities?"

"Oh please," Six says. "Do I have to put you flat on your back again just to wear down your tough-guy persona?"

"As much as I'd like to say yes…" I trail off, earning myself a glare from Six.

"In your dreams…" she mutters.

"How did you know?" I ask sarcastically.

"Don't even… that's just creepy." Six says.

"Relax- I'm kidding. Most of my dreams these days are about xenocidal aliens."

We walk in silence for a while, and then we come to a stop at the end of the hall. There are doors to the left and right, both unmarked and identical.

"Which way?" I ask.

"Left," Six says confidently, starting to walk towards that door. "No, wait," she says, stopping mid-stride, "right. I think."

"This isn't a major life decision, you know," I say chidingly.

"I know. I just suddenly got the feeling that we should go right," she says, pushing open the door.

It leads to an ornately decorated dining room, complete with an intricate crystal chandelier, artistic centerpiece and fine china. The circular table is set for nine, but oddly there are only six chairs. Six strides purposely across the room to the second chair on the left and lifts up the plate, peering underneath it.

"I don't suppose it would be worth asking what you're—"

I stop abruptly, looking in shock at the folded piece of paper Six is holding. She unfolds it, and I read over her shoulder.

_To Whoever Finds This:_

_I really hope there aren't any Mogadorian eyes reading this note. I charmed it just like Alexis said to, so I hope it draws some of the other numbers to it first. Anyway, I should get to the point. _

_We're under attack. Alexis spotted them from the tower just a few seconds ago, and they'll be crashing through the front door soon. Alexis told me to write this, to explain what's happening, and then to run. He said he'd stay, hold them off so that I could make it. I wanted to argue with him, tell him that we could both get away in time, but he wouldn't have any of it. He said that his only job was to ensure my safety, and he could best do that by staying. _

_I'm headed to the airport, like he said. My flight leaves at 8, so if you find this soon enough I'll still be there, _

_If not… well, I have my communicator. Hopefully we'll be able to get in touch. _

_I don't have time to explain any more. I still have one final goodbye to say before I leave._

The note is signed, simply, "Five".

"So that's how you knew it was there," I say as Six inhales deeply, folding the note and putting it in her pocket.

She nods. "It was… pulling me, almost, towards that spot. The feeling's gone away now that I found it."

"So then why didn't I feel it?" I ask, puzzled.

Six shrugs. "Maybe I was just paying more attention to my surroundings."

We start to walk back towards the room where the others are when Six speaks again.

"You realize what this means, don't you?" she asks.

"What what means?" I ask.

"The note- it means that of the twenty Loric who came here only eight are left- numbers Four through Ten and Crayton. One Cèpan for seven Garde. It means that there's only one person left who knows the exact details of what we need to do to win this war."

Six seems rather bothered by this fact, and rather than emptily reassuring her, I trust her instincts.

"Do you think we should talk to Crayton about that?" I ask cautiously.

"Well we have to take this to him anyways," she says, indicating the note, "so we might as well while we're there. I mean," she continues, "it's just ridiculous the way it is. Our mission is in the sole hands of one person, who isn't even one of the Garde. It's just too risky for us to carry on like this."

She is, of course, right, but given Crayton's continued reluctance to dispense 'unnecessary' information, I doubt talking to him will do much good.

"I see what you mean," I reply. "If he were killed, we'd all be pretty much finished as well effectively."

Six nods. "Exactly. I'm glad you agree with me."

With that we start to walk back towards the room where the others are, following the same route as not to get lost. Frankly, despite the urgency of our needing to meet Five, I can't say I'm looking forward to driving back to the airport, taking yet another flight to some undoubtedly obscure location and trying to hunt him down. What I need right now is rest. Lots of food and lots of sleep for a couple of days, just to recharge my batteries, so to speak, and make our arduous task seem less daunting. But I doubt Crayton has rest anywhere near his list of priorities. He's even worse than Six was when me and Sam first met her, insisting we go from place to place every night in flight from the Mogs. Events have been moving at a furious pace ever since we met up with Crayton, and I know that I, for one, need some time to catch my breath.

When we walk into the room, the sight that greets us is not encouraging. While Nine is up on his feet again and Crayton is talking with Ella, there's still a body on the floor. It belongs, of course, to Eight. Sam and Marina are crouched beside her, a pained expression on both of their faces. Marina has her hands on Eight's shoulders, presumably trying to heal her, but it doesn't seem to be having any effect. As I watch Sam's face, I can see frustration growing on it. Me and Six walk over to them cautiously, not sure how to act.

"What's happening?" Six asks Marina, who is starting to look impatient herself.

"Oh… it's you," she says, looking up from Eight. "Nine and Crayton woke up quickly, but this trance- or whatever it is, seems to have a stronger grip on Eight."

Sam doesn't greet either of us, continuing to stare at Eight's blank features. I crouch down beside him, but he doesn't notice me. I don't know what to say to him, or even if he'd hear it if I did. Marina notices me looking at him, worried, and turns to face me.

"He, on the other hand," she says quietly, "there's nothing I can do for. So far as I can tell he's just in shock now that the adrenaline of the fight has worn off. He'll be fine as soon as she wakes up, probably."

That's what Marina said fifteen minutes ago, now. We've been waiting here all this time, and Eight still hasn't showed any sign of life besides the slow rise and fall of her chest. Sam has been recovering from his shock over the last couple of minutes, and while he still looks worried, he can now register our presences.

"I'm sorry," Marina says hesitantly after a further five minutes of waiting. The others have joined us now, standing around Eight's body, "but there's nothing I can do for her at the moment. She'll be fine," she adds quickly, "but I think there are just some things her mind needs to work out before she'll come back to us."

Crayton sighs. "Thanks, Marina," he says. "We all know you did what you could."

Why is Crayton talking so… morbidly? It's like Eight was dead instead of just unconscious. Although if she doesn't recover soon, it'll be hard not to fear the worst.

Six takes advantage of the momentary silence to show the note she found to Crayton. He scans it quickly, and looks relieved.

"Thanks for finding this," he says gratefully.

He then raises his voice to address the group.

"Good news," he says. "According to this, Five is still alive, and headed for the airport."

That statement is greeted with a quiet cheer from the others.

"We'll have to be quick if we want to catch him before he leaves," Crayton says, checking his watch.

"I'll go and bring the car around," Nine offers. He goes to do so, and is followed by Marina and Ella.

That leaves just me, Six, Sam and Crayton in the room. Crayton starts to follow the others, but stops back just shy of the door to address Six and me.

"If you wouldn't mind," he asks, "could I bother you two to bring Eight with you?"

"Of course," I reply, and then under my breath, "you mean we shouldn't leave her here?"

As Crayton leaves, me and Six stand on opposite sides of Eight.

"On three," Six says. "One…Tw—"

"No," Sam interrupts forcefully. "It's okay. I'll take her."

"Are you sure?" Six makes the mistake of asking. She doesn't know Sam as well as I do- when he decides he's going to do something, he refuses to be talked out of it.

He shoots her a glare. "I may not be Loric," he says pointedly, "but that doesn't mean I can't do anything."

He then walks directly between us, bending to pick up Eight. He staggers slightly as he rises- not because Eight is heavy, which she definitely isn't, but because Sam, despite his massive determination and resolve, isn't the strongest of guys. I'm impressed by the fact that he's able to carry her at all, to be honest. I use my telekinesis to help him by pulling slightly upwards on Eight- just enough so that he won't hurt himself on the way to the car.

He walks steadily towards the door, Eight's limp body resting in his arms. Me and Six follow behind him silently. The three of us are once again standing in a triangle- just like when Sam and I had our first awkward re-union with Six after she got back from Spain. But everything has changed since then. We're moving forward- towards a victory over the Mogadorians, thanks to Crayton, and hopefully towards happiness as well.

When we get back outside, we find that Nine has indeed pulled the car around. He's having a heated argument with Crayton through the driver's window- which he seems to win, causing Crayton to throw up his hands in frustration and slide into the passenger seat.

Sam carefully lowers Eight into a seat, sliding in beside her. As soon as I get in, closing the door behind me, Nine guns the engine, apparently eager to ensure that we catch Five before he leaves. I share the sentiment- I really don't want to be stuck on another plane traveling to a different continent in search of Five. As we pull onto the main road, Nine increases his speed to what must be at least twice the legal limit, and despite the rush we're in I find myself wishing he'd slow down. This would be a bad time for us to be pulled over, seeing as we're in a hurry, I'm pretty sure Nine doesn't have a driver's license, and the police would probably think we'd drugged the still unresponsive Eight.

"All right, I'll slow down," Nine says telepathically. "No need to have a cow back there, Four. Just don't blame me if we're late."

True to his word, he does slow down slightly, but if I hadn't been watching the speedometer at the time I probably wouldn't have noticed. We make it to the airport in a time that would have put NASCAR drivers to shame, but our progress is halted by an unexpected problem.

"What are we going to do with her?" Ella asks, pointing to Eight as Nine pulls into a parking space.

"Well we can't take her with us," Nine says. "That would look pretty suspicious."

"We can't just leave her here!" Sam snaps. "What if she woke up and didn't know where we were?"

"All right, I'll take her," Six finally says. "Might as well put my invisibility to good use."

She vanishes from view, followed shortly by Eight. The group of us then set off at a brisk walk towards the terminal, which evolves into a sprint as Crayton looks again at his watch.

We draw some curious looks from passers-by as we charge through the terminal, but they probably just assume we're really late for our flight. We eventually come to a halt by a row of seats just outside of security not thirty seconds later, unable to proceed any further without tickets. Marina jumps, startled, as Eight appears suddenly on a seat near her.

"Just sit here," Six's voice hisses, emanating from unnervingly empty air. "I'll go bring him back here."

We all grab seats around Eight, trying to look relaxed. Several tense, silent minutes pass before Six reappears, with Five in tow. She lets go of his hand just a second after they become visible, and I feel for the briefest of moments how Sarah must have felt about my midnight walks with Six. The feeling increases three-fold, however, when I get my first good look at Five. He's about my height, with light, sandy blond hair, pale green eyes and a nervous smile that girls probably think is cute. The odd thing though, is that he looks… perfect. He doesn't have a strand of hair out of place, the tiniest hint of acne or bags under his eyes. For someone who just survived a Mogadorian attack… too perfect. He surveys the group quietly, seemingly anxious at the thought of having to meet us all at once. Then his eyes flicker over to Eight, and fear floods to his face.

"Is she…" he trails off. His voice is melodic, musical almost.

"She'll be fine," Crayton says assertively, extending his hand to Five. "It's a long story."

Five shakes Crayton's hand, and I notice muscles bulging in his forearm as he does. My eyes scan his face again, and for a split second he looks directly at me, and I can't look away. He stares at me for a couple of seconds, and then turns away, allowing me to as well. I look at the rest of the group, only to find that the same thing seems to be happening to them. The girls- even Ella, for goodness sake, are falling all over themselves to flirt with him, and Nine and Sam, not to mention Crayton, seem to be transfixed whenever his gaze falls on them. Something isn't right here.

Crayton finally surfaces from whatever aura Five is projecting.

"We should be going," he says. "There are a lot of things we need to explain."

"But… what about her ?" Five asks, looking at Eight, confused.

"That's my job," Six says coyly, winking as she goes invisible.

We head off back to the truck, presumably to drive off to some 'safe' location. Five walks in the middle of the pack with Crayton, followed closely by Marina and Ella. Nine takes point, leaving me and Sam to bring up the rear.

"Does something about Five bother you?" I ask Sam quietly.

He doesn't respond. I track his eyes, and somehow it doesn't surprise me to find them locked on Five.

"Sam!" I say, nudging him with my shoulder.  
>"Huh?" he asks, spinning around annoyedly.<p>

"I asked you if something about Five bothered you!"  
>"Not yet," Sam says coolly, suddenly lucid. "I assume from that question that you don't like him?"<p>

I shake my head. "Something about him doesn't seem quite right."

"Could it just be that you're worried Six will like him better than you?"

"That's ridiculous! Why would I be worried about that?"

"Aside from the fact that she couldn't keep her eyes off of him, no reason."

"But that's what I mean," I say frustratedly. "Everybody's staring at him. Not just the girls, but you and Nine as well! Even I was for a while! Doesn't that seem unnatural to you?"

Sam pauses to consider. "Good point. That _is _weird."

"You know," he says after a longer pause, by which time we've reached the parking lot, "he is Loric. Maybe one of his Legacies is that everybody he meets instantly likes him."

What Sam says makes sense, but if it's true, we'll be in for a difficult time. If it keeps on like this, Marina and Six will be fighting over him by the end of the week. And Eight hasn't even seen him yet. Although, at this rate, waking up and being in his presence might just knock her right back out again.

The truck, spacious as it is, is cramped with yet another person in it, and I find myself squished between the door on one side and a comatose Eight on the other.

"So who wants to stay in a hotel tonight?" Crayton asks as he steers onto the highway, having reclaimed the driver's seat from Five. A loud cheer erupts from the back in response.

"I figured you guys might feel that way," Crayton says, "so I took the liberty of booking us a couple of rooms at the Hyatt. Besides, there's some stuff we need to discuss, and we might as well do it in comfort."

We arrive at the Hyatt shortly after, and it isn't long before we're all gathered in a suite, sitting on whatever furniture we can find. Once again the activity seems to gravitate around Five- but Sam at least, after our earlier conversation is acting normal.

Crayton has us go around in turn, introducing ourselves and our Legacies. It's pretty boring for us, but I guess it will help Five 'fit in'. As if he needs help. Six continues to be shamelessly flirtatious with Five, to the point where Crayton actually has to tell her to be quiet so that Nine can speak. Since we've met Five, Six seems to be acting more and more like Sarah, or even one of the girls in the 'popular' clique at my old high school, fawning over boys, than the Six I know and love.

Once we've all finished there's an awkward silence as we all look at Eight, who is obviously in no shape to introduce herself.

"She's Eight," Sam finally says quietly. "Her Legacies are telekinesis, transparency and transference."

"What happened to her?" Five asks in that annoying voice of his.

"We were in a fight with one of the Mogadorian lieutenants," Crayton says. "A vile beast that uses terror as a weapon to paralyze its enemies. She was exposed to so much terror, and for so long, that her mind has basically shut down. We don't know how long it'll be before she recovers."

_Or even if she will_, I add silently.

"I might be able to help with that," Five says thoughtfully.

"I already tried healing her, if that's what you mean," Marina says. "I don't think we can help her with what she's going through."

"That's not what I meant," Five says. "You see, one of my Legacies is… well, I'm not sure how to put it- I'm not really an empath, but I'm good with emotions and stuff like that. I might be able to balance the terror she's experiencing with courage or hope, or something of that sort.

I raise an eyebrow at Sam, who nods knowingly. 'Good with emotions', sure. I'd bet anything that he can manipulate them, and that that's what he's been doing constantly ever since we met him.

"You can try," Crayton says.

Five nods, carefully reaching out to place a hand on Eight's forehead. Then he lets out a sudden scream, an ear-piercing, fear-inducing scream, and his eyes roll back in his head as he slumps to the ground next to Eight.


	15. An Old Friend

**A/N: So here is Chapter Fifteen, much sooner than I imagine most of you expected it. I'm starting to wrap up this story, and I'm hoping to have it finished by August 21, which is the release of the official _Rise of Nine_. One last note- I finally discovered the "insert horizontal line" button, so now I'm using that to help separate dream scenes and stuff like that. Finally, thanks to BluRay for letting me bounce some ideas off of her for these final chapters. Enjoy!  
><strong>

**Eight:**

_Some people say that you shouldn't judge things, like being trapped in a nightmare for an indefinite period of time, until you've tried them. Well you can tell those people that I've tried that, and if anything it's even less fun than I expected._

_I've been sitting here; in the corner of whatever devilish world my conscious mind has been confined to, curled in the fetal position, for what seems like an eternity. But it could have only been a few minutes. Which is worse, I wonder? And in that time, however long or short it may have been, I've seen terrible things. _

_I've seen the main body of the Mogadorian army, row upon row of soldiers and scouts being put through drills on a barren asteroid. I've seen the glass-paneled chambers that regular soldiers enter and Elites exit. I've seen stacks of glowing swords and cannons sitting in an armory. And most terrifyingly, I've seen the demonic Setràkus Ra talking with his lieutenants, marking maps of Earth with red dots. _

_Everything I've seen has one thing in common. It has drained whatever last dregs of hope and courage that were left in my system. It has shattered my belief in our plan, my confidence in our chances of victory. Because however wise and powerful and courageous we are, there's no way the seven of us that are left can take on this juggernaut of an army. _

_Then suddenly my vision shifts again, to inside Setràkus Ra's throne room. He's in conference with a large group of soldiers, probably the captains or colonels of the army. He has the map of Earth up again, and is indicating what must be landing locations to the group. I strain my ears, trying to pick up some of what is being said, but what little I can make out is nonsensical. _

_But then another voice reaches my ears, one that cuts through the despair and misery that has surrounded me._

"_Come with me."_

_I turn around, and immediately think I must be dreaming. Then I remember that I am, and I force myself to focus. _

_The boy standing in front of me, hand outstretched, has got to be a figment of my imagination. He has piercing, beautiful light green eyes, perfectly styled sandy blond hair, and a hesitant smile on his face._

"_W-Who are you?" I manage to stammer out. I can't believe I'm actually doing this. Meeting a boy has never left me tongue-tied before. _

_His smile widens._

"_I'm a friend," he says in a soft, soothing voice. "You can call me Five."_

"_Five?" I gasp. "But how did you get here? You weren't with us when we were fighting Deimos."_

"_It's complicated," he replies. "Let's just say that I have the ability to undo what Deimos did to you. But you have to come with me."_

_His last sentence is laced with a tone that I find absolutely irresistible, causing me to take his hand and allow him to pull me up. He then sets off at a sprint towards the horizon, and I find myself compelled to follow him. _

"_Hurry up!" he yells as a shimmering emerald green portal comes into view in front of us. "Your friends are waiting for you!"_

_I turn back just before the portal, only to see the sleek, black-robed form of Deimos swooping along the ground, approaching rapidly. I look away hurriedly, and see Five vanishing into the portal, all of him gone except for his right leg. But in that split second before he pulls it through and it joins him in whatever place this portal leads to, I see something that scares me even more than Deimos. His leg is perfectly smooth, with no scars marking the deaths of One, Two and Three. Whoever 'Five' is, he's not one of us. His last words still ring in my ears, however, and with a quick glance behind me I launch myself into the portal, hoping that Sam and Nine and Four and the others are on the other side, waiting for me._

* * *

><p>I'm lying on the floor, and as I try to sit up, I see the faces of those around me as only blurs, but I know whom they must be. I can hear them whispering hopefully, but I'm too tired to make out any words. I catch a glimpse of my rescuer, the one who calls himself Five, lying on the ground next to me, but as I try to force myself to stand, my legs give way and I collapse into unconsciousness.<p>

I wake up for the next time in the morning, the sun's light having shone through the windows and pulled me from my sleep. As I open my eyes I see that I'm in what appears to be a hotel room. An empty hotel room. I walk unsteadily through a connecting door, hoping to see some familiar faces on the other side. They're all gathered around a large round table, eating room service. Five nods to me as I sit down in the sole empty chair, reaching for a plate.

"So how are you feeling?" Crayton asks as he passes me a dish of scrambled eggs.

"Better, thanks to Five, but I'm still pretty worn out. By the way," I add, addressing the aforementioned Five, "you still haven't explained how you were able to rescue me."

"Oh… that," he says, looking down at his shoes. "Empathy is one of my Legacies. Since the nature of your imprisonment was emotional, I was able to enter your mind and neutralize the oppressive emotions."

"Well, however you did it, thanks. I owe you one," I reply after a pause.

"We all do," Sam says gratefully. "We're going to need everybody we have to beat the Mogs."

"That's so cool that you were able to do that," Six says, leaning in closer to Five. He backs away slightly, obviously uncomfortable.

"I'm not good for much else," he says cautiously, "so I like to help where I can"

"Oh come on," Six says playfully. "Didn't you say you're a shapeshifter? That's such a cool Legacy- you'll have to show me how it works sometime."

What is going on here? Six, who just yesterday (at least I assume it was yesterday- I'm not entirely sure how long I was unconscious), just about killed me for merely talking with John, is now shamelessly throwing herself at Five, who she just met yesterday, right in front of John. What a hypocrite. I do my best to tune her out, but neither Crayton and Nine's discussion of potential Mog bases or Ella and Marina's nostalgic chat about life in Spain interests me, so I turn my attention to Sam and John.

"Am I missing something here?" I ask Sam, who's sitting to my left.

"You mean about— that?" he asks, indicating Six, who seems to be attempting to squirm onto Five's lap as he slides his chair away from her.

John rolls his eyes, but doesn't look as annoyed as I would have expected him to.

"It's a long story," he says.

"You guys always say that. Can't you just give me a straight answer for once?" I ask, frustrated.

"All right," Sam says, lowering his voice. "You know how Five says he's an empath? Well, me and John think that he can not only sense emotions, but also manipulate them. Six has been like this ever since she met him- he must be pushing pretty hard. Marina used to be just as bad, but she seems better now that he's focusing on her."

"But if he's doing it deliberately then why does he so uncomfortable with her?" I ask, perplexed.

John shrugs. "Who knows? Maybe he just likes the attention. Maybe he thinks I'll beat him up if he gets too comfortable."

I snort derisively into my scrambled eggs. "I think you've got it, John," I say sarcastically. "That must be it. Why would he be toying with her emotions in the first place if he wasn't petrified of incurring your fearful wrath?"

"Why are all the girls around here so bloody sarcastic?" John asks, mock- angrily.

"Tell me about it," Sam mutters.

"Point well taken," John finally admits to me.

"I hate to bring this up," I say tentatively, "but do you think it's possible that he's not doing it deliberately? It _would _explain why he's so nervous."

"That makes some sense," Sam says thoughtfully, "but it seems unlikely to me. If it _was _accidental, then theoretically it would affect everyone equally, which it obviously isn't. Besides, as callous as this may sound, his Cèpan only died yesterday. He would have had plenty of training on how to control his Legacies."

"You realize if we agree that it's deliberate, we're accusing him of something pretty serious- using his Legacies selfishly rather than for the good of the Garde," I say.

"We probably shouldn't be talking about something like this in here," John says quietly. "We could easily be overheard."

I doubt anyone's paying attention to us, too busy with their own conversations- or in Five's case, too busy running away- almost literally- from Six, but the potential risk is too great.

"We can talk in my room," I say, snagging the last roll from the table and standing up.

Nobody even seems to notice us leave as we head back through the connecting door, crashing on a trio of chairs.

"So if we agree that something's going on," Sam says, stretching, "what, if anything, do we do about it?"

"I don't know about you guys," John says impatiently, "but if this goes on much longer I'm going to torch someone- probably Five- just out of frustration."

"You have to be patient, John. If we're right about all of this, then it's not her fault," Sam counters.

"Knowing that doesn't make it any easier, unfortunately," John says with a regretful sigh.

"Look, John," Sam says, frustration starting to seep into his voice, "if anyone knows what it's like tot have the girl you like all over another guy, it's me. Trust my experience when I say that you just have to try to forget about it and hope that something changes. You can't let it cloud your judgment when you're dealing with a serious issue like this."

"Personally, I don't think we can make a decision until we talk to Six," I say, re-entering the discussion. "I mean- no offense, John- but it _is _possible that Five isn't doing anything at all and that Six is just acting the way she is for some other reason.

"I refuse to believe that," John says stubbornly, crossing his arms in front of him.

"I'd have to agree with John," Sam concurs. "You missed some stuff while you were out, Eight."

"Like what?" I ask curiously.

"Well, once we finally managed to force Deimos to retreat," an extremely hen-pecked Sam begins, "I went to get Marina and Ella, leaving Six to watch over you, John, Crayton and Nine, who were currently all unconscious. Little did I know that—"

"Is it _really _necessary to tell that story?" John interrupts.

Sam shrugs. "Everybody else knows already anyways, and besides, it's relevant."

"You can't just pique my curiosity and then say 'Never mind'," I say.

John shrugs, giving in.

"Well to make a long story short," Sam finally continues, "me, Marina and Ella ended up walking in on a disgustingly steamy make-out session between a miraculously recovered John and Six."

I try extremely hard not to laugh, but the whole scenario is pretty funny.

"So my point is, Sam finishes, "unless Six is a lot more fickle than any of us give her credit for, this whole thing with her and Five isn't natural."

"I just remembered something important," I say, having recalled a detail from my first 'encounter' with Five. "While Five was rescuing me, I got a good look at his leg."

"Are you going to go on about how stunningly beautiful it was, or do you actually have a point?" John asks irritated.

"Easy, John," I say. "I'm getting there. What I noticed was that—"

"Oh, hey," Six interrupts, having bounded suddenly into the room. "Sorry… am I interrupting something?" she asks upon seeing our surprised faces.

"Uh…no," Sam manages to say, recovering quickly. "We were just talking."

I don't hear Six's response, as I'm focusing on John. It takes me a moment to realize that the words he's mouthing are, 'Was what?'.

'Later', I mouth in reply before turning away, just in time to catch Six's expectant gaze.

"Well?" she asks. "What are you waiting for?"

"You wouldn't want to keep Crayton waiting- apparently this is a _very _important meeting," Sam says pointedly.

'Thanks', I mouth as we walk back to the main room and reclaim our seats.

"So by my count," Crayton says, standing up and placing his palms flat on the table, "we now have in our possession seven of the ten pendants that we need to build the bomb. The problem is, of course, that the Mogadorians have the other three. So I've called this meeting so that we can begin to plan an infiltration on the base where they're being kept and steal them back. But before we begin scheming, I'd like to make something extremely clear to all of you. If we're unlucky, and Setràkus Ra is as the base when we infiltrate it, then none of us, under absolutely any circumstances whatsoever, are to attempt to engage him in combat. He will kill you without expending a modicum of effort. I don't care if there's a group of you, or if you catch him by surprise, or even if he's already injured. Even if every single one of us attacked him simultaneously, heavily armed, Legacies firing on all cylinders, _and_ he was blindfolded, he could still utterly destroy us. Understand?" he asks, looking deliberately at Nine, who nods in concession.

"But… how is he that powerful?" Marina asks. "He _is _only one person, after all."

"Well for starters," Crayton says, "he's about 20 feet tall, and has immense physical strength as well as impressive speed for his size. He could probably kill you by stepping on you if he really wanted to. But more importantly, he has powers that I can only describe as divine- in fact, the Mogadorians not only consider him their leader, but also worship him. From the rumours I've heard, he is telekinetic, like the Garde, but can also teleport, heal his own wounds extraordinarily quickly, and even manipulate the web of space-time itself. And I'm sure he has other abilities that only he knows about. The only way he could be defeated is if Pittacus Lore himself were to duel him, and even then they would be pretty evenly matched."

"So where did he get all of this power from?" I ask, curious.

"Simple," Crayton says. "He stole it.

"You know, of course," Crayton says, elaborating, "the story of how the Garde obtained their Legacies from Lore, the guardian spirit of Lorien. What happened on Mogadore was somewhat similar to that. The Mogadorians treated their home planet so poorly that the guardian spirit of Mogadore, who was named Vale, was destroyed. His destruction released his power, and the person who was closest to his location at the time absorbed it; Setràkus Ra, who back then was just a regular Mogadorian. He kept most of it for himself, transforming him into an amazingly powerful being, and gave small amounts to his lieutenants, and even smaller amounts to the Elites, to allow them to absorb Loric Legacies."

"How do you know all of this?" Marina asks, awed.

Crayton gives her a sad smile. "It's part of my duty as a Cèpan to know information as important as this."

"So what _should _we do if we run into Setràkus Ra?" Five asks.

"Run like hell," Crayton says, completely serious. "If you're lucky, he won't have noticed you- there are disadvantages to being that tall."

"Can we get started already?" Nine asks impatiently. "We get that Setràkus Ra is big and dangerous."

"All right," Crayton says. "So far as I know, the Mogadorians have only two bases that they would consider secure enough to keep the pendants in. One of them is the massive cave complex in West Virginia, and the other is a high-tech scientific facility located- and we really lucked out here, in the middle of the Australian desert."

"It's got to be the one here, then, doesn't it?" John asks. "There's no way they'd keep anything important in West Virginia now that they know that we know it's there."

"You really think the Mogs are smart enough to realize that?" Nine asks, smirking.

"Never underestimate your opponent," Crayton says to Nine. "While it's true that the soldiers and scouts have very limited intelligence, Setràkus Ra is running the show with the help of his lieutenants, and they know what they're doing."

"You sound just like Sandor," Nine mutters.

"But what if we're wrong about them being in Australia, though?" Six asks. "What if they're somewhere in a base we don't know about or Setràkus Ra keeps them with him at all times?"

"We have to accept that our plan won't be foolproof," Crayton says. "Like you said, Six, there are some potential events that we won't be able to anticipate that could make matters difficult. But the fact is, we have no other choice but to go ahead anyway. We need the last three pendants- otherwise Setràkus Ra can just keep sending armies at us until we make a mistake."

I can't argue with Crayton's logic, which is as impeccable as usual.

"So I've been doing some thinking," Crayton continues, "and I've come up with the framework for a plan that I think might work. I'll need some ideas, and I want to know if you guys think it's feasible. So here goes…"

* * *

><p>"You're nuts," Nine says as Crayton finishes. "No, really. I know I can be a little crazy sometimes, but there are <em>way <em>too many ifs and maybes in that plan for it to have a chance of working."

I have to agree with Nine for once. Crayton's plan not only requires tons of resources, including a bucketful of Xitharis, which we definitely don't have, but also extraordinary luck, uncanny timing, and some _very _stupid Mog guards.

"This isn't an easy task, you know," Crayton says, wiping his brow. "If you have anything better I'd be happy to hear it."

"I don't have a full-fledged plan," John says, "but I think you're on to something with the Xitharis. It'll be crucial for us to be undetectable if we're going to succeed. The only problem is, it won't last long enough. When me and Sam used it in West Virginia, it only got us in before it ran out. Nine had to get us out."

"I can go in with the main team, then," Six says. "That way time won't be an issue. I can only take two people with me, though."

"I can guarantee you that the pendants will be under guard," Crayton says. "It'll look suspicious if they suddenly disappear- the entire place will be in lockdown within seconds."

"So we'll need a distraction of some sort," Five says thoughtfully. "What if we were to send in two other teams of two people each to opposite sides of the compound? They'd be spotted almost immediately, and they should draw the guards away in pursuit."

"They'd never get away in time," Nine says. "It'd be a suicide mission- we'd only get the main team out of there alive."

"I don't think we're going to get anywhere today," Crayton finally says after several more minutes of discussion. "Let's use today to drive to within striking range of the base so that once we have a good idea we can put it to use immediately."

As it turns out, the base is a good eight hour drive from where we are now. We plan to drive most of the way there, and stay for the night at the nearest populated area.

I pack quickly for what seems like the umpteenth time, and then head back to the main room. John is waiting there.

"I'm already packed," he says in explanation. "So what _did _you notice about Five's leg?" he asks me, lowering his voice.

I look around furtively. The others aren't in sight.

"He doesn't have any scars on his leg," I say quietly. "That means isn't Loric."

"You're only saying this now?" John asks, the volume of his voice increasing involuntarily. "We just discussed an extremely important plan with him in the room!"

"I didn't have a chance before," I say defensively. "Six interrupted us, remember?"

"I'm going to go get Sam," John says walking into the guys' room. "He needs to hear this."

He returns a moment later with a disgruntled Sam in tow.

"Tell him what you just told me," he says.

I quickly relate how there are no scars on Five's leg, and how I think that means he can't be Loric. Sam opens his mouth to respond when another voice cuts into the conversation.

"So that's why you were all looking at me like that," Five says, having silently re-entered the room, his fully packed luggage sitting next to him. "For your information, I am one hundred percent Loric. If you were paying attention when I was talking about my Legacies last night, you would have heard me say that I was a shapeshifter. Since the scars would make it easy for the Mogs to identify me, I use my shapeshifting to get rid of them. Here," he says, "I'll even prove it to you."

He closes his eyes, focusing, and a trio of scars appear on his leg, identical to the ones on everybody else's.

"Happy?" he asks.

John and Sam look shell-shocked at Five's sudden anger, guilty expressions on their faces.

"To be fair, I was unconscious last night," I say weakly.

Five opens the door and walks out, slamming it behind him. The noise brings the others, who by now have finished packing.

"Where'd Five go?" Six asks, looking around confusedly.

"He went down to the lobby already," Sam says, managing not to look guilty.

"We'd better catch up with him, then," Crayton says.

He pushes the door open, and we file through it taking the elevator down to the lobby. Five's there, all right, but so is somebody else. A blonde-haired girl, who's chatting with him. The sight bothers me slightly, but not nearly as much as it seems to affect John, who's staring at her, a shocked expression on his face.

"Sarah?" he asks.


	16. Perspectives

**A/N: And here's Chapter 16, and I'm still (hopefully) on pace to be able to finish this story by the 21st. With the re-introduction of Sarah here, some of you might start to think about her a little bit differently after finishing this chapter. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, and number 17 should be out in a few days.  
><strong>

**Six:**

I pinch myself, thinking I must be dreaming. But I'm not, and the blonde-haired girl talking to Five is unmistakably the human that has caused me more anguish than anybody else. Sarah Hart. She turns when she hears John's voice, does a double-take, and then a look that's a combination of surprise and guilt dawns on her face. It doesn't look good on her.

"John?" she says, her voice as annoying as I remember. "I…I'm so sorry about…" she trails off, apparently too overcome by her emotions to continue. John is standing next to me, looking like somebody just hit him over the head with a sledgehammer. I don't give either of them a chance to recover.

"Enough," I snap, taking a step forward, placing myself between Sarah and John. "If you were actually sorry you wouldn't have sold John out to the FBI in the first place."

"You again," she mutters to herself upon hearing me speak.

"If you don't mind my asking, Sarah," Sam begins cautiously, stepping around me, "What exactly are you doing here?"

She looks glad to have an excuse to talk to somebody other than me.

"I'm on vacation," she says. "With my parents. We've always wanted to go to Australia."

I can't believe this. Of all the places and all the times for her to go on vacation, she has to pick Australia, at the exact time that we're here.

"You know John and Six?" Five asks Sarah. "And what's all this about the FBI?"

"It's complicated," she replies, glancing behind her.

"It's complicated," I say mockingly. "That's a nice way to gloss over the fact that you nearly got John and Sam killed."

"It's complicated!" she screams fearfully. "Everything's complicated!"

"Stop it!" Marina says, rare anger evident in her voice. "I don't know, or care, quite frankly, how you guys know each other, or who sold who to the FBI. What I do know is that we don't have time for it, especially not in the middle of a hotel."

"Sarah," John finally says, "I think you should go back to your parents now. Forget you ever saw us."

"No," she sobs, tears running down her face. "You don't understand. My parents…"

"What about your parents?" Crayton asks commandingly, suddenly interested in the conversation.

"They have them," she whispers in a voice too quiet for non-Loric ears to hear. "They've had them for a while now."

The meaning of Sarah's statement is obvious. There's only one 'they' that could cause her so much fear, that could explain so much of what's happened. The Mogs have Sarah's parents. I don't stop to think about the logical consequences of this, or plot a course of action. I act.

"What do you they want from you?" I ask, trying to sound as sympathetic as possible.

Sarah shakes her head. "They'll kill them."

"Listen to me, Sarah," Nine says. "When the Mogadorians take hostages, they don't ever release them. No matter what. I know this because it happened to a friend of mine. The end result will be the same whether you help us or not. Please… what you know could save our lives."

Sarah's face contorts into a twisted mask of agony. She takes several quick, shallow breaths, trying to calm herself down.

"They- They wanted to me to send John through the back door, alone," she says, indicating the door in question. "There's a bunch of them there, waiting."

"We'll go out the front then," Nine says, not even bothering to thank Sarah.

"If they know we're here, they'll have the whole building surrounded," Crayton says. "Our best bet is for us all to go out the back. They'll be surprised to see all of us there."

We head to the back door, stopping just in front of it.

"Sam and Ella, you stay here with Sarah," Crayton orders. "The rest of you- they'll fire on us as soon as we open that door, so get your telekinesis ready. Nine, you take point. On three now, one… two… three!"

Nine crashes through the door, the rest of us following closely behind. We deflect the first wave of bullets, and take advantage of the Mogs' momentary surprise, laying into them with a menagerie of Legacies. They turn to ash quickly.

"I have to say," John muses as we head cautiously towards the parking lot, having picked up Sarah, Sam and Ella, "I'm kind of offended that they thought those Mogs could overpower me. None of them were even Elites- it would have been too easy."

John's right- it was too easy. That's probably why all hell breaks loose as we round the corner of the hotel and approach the truck. People are screaming and running everywhere, some whipping out cell phones and others cameras. There's what must be an entire battalion of Mogs in the parking lot, and a good number of them wear the armour of an Elite. Piken and kraul roam the edges of the army, growling menacingly as the army charges towards us. After this battle we'll be on news stations everywhere, but so be it. The Mogs already know where we are.

"Weapons ready!" Crayton commands. We all draw weapons- Sam his energized sword, Nine his staff and the rest of us, including me, daggers. Those of us with Chimæra lower them to the ground, where they transform into muscular, four-legged beasts with spiked tails. Finally, Nine presses his thumb to Sam's forehead, transferring some of his power.

"Don't directly attack the Elites with Legacies," Crayton reminds us.

"Grab my hand," I say reluctantly to Sarah, who is quivering with fear.

Counting the Chimæra, and the useless Sarah, we're outnumbered roughly one thousand to thirteen. So we do the natural thing- we charge to meet them.

I go invisible immediately, slicing the throat of the first Mog I see and grabbing his sword. I cut my way through the horde of Mogs, decapitating a few piken along the way, but it's impossible for me to fight as well as I'd like to with Sarah tagging along. To my left is John, ignoring Crayton's advice and using fire to kill Elites. A few of them absorb his power, but like in the battle in Five's mansion he's somehow able to take the power back from them and kill them. The trio of Marina, Ella and Sam is on the right, all wielding swords effectively. Sam seems to have figured out how best to use his new weapon, slashing in wide arcs. Even though most of the hits he scores are only glancing, they still reduce the Mogs to ash instantly. Five, Eight and Crayton have moved ahead to fight with Nine, who is using his staff to brutally terminate Mogs, their body parts flying everywhere. I'm impressed by how well Five fights; I had gotten the impression that his Cèpan had become complacent, not moving around and perhaps not putting Five through rigorous training, but that doesn't seem to have been the case. Of course, it could just be natural talent; Five seems to be so good at everything. I hack my way through another pack of Mogs, but I'm starting to tire. I'd estimate we've killed about half of them so far, but I'm not sure I can keep it up much longer so long as I'm lugging a dead weight around. I'm tempted to just let her go, but I can't- not after she helped us. To my right, Marina seems to be struggling as well- a Mog slips past her slash, sliding behind her.

"Watch out, Marina!" I yell, unable to do anything to help.

The Mog brings his sword down in a deadly arc towards the still unaware Marina, and even Loric reflexes won't be enough to save her. But then suddenly she's gone, and the sword passes through empty air. Then she reappears again, this time behind the Mog, and beheads him, a wicked grin on her face. She seems to have found her master Legacy; she's a teleporter. She uses it to skip around the battlefield, appearing briefly to kill a few unsuspecting Mogs and then vanishing again. I force myself to keep going, fighting fatigue as much as the Mogs, increasing my speed until I catch up to Five and the lead group.

"Having fun yet?" Nine pants as he cracks the skull of yet another Mog.

"We're almost there," Crayton says, tossing a grenade to his right, where it vaporizes an entire pack of Mogs.

Crayton's right. There's just a fraction of the army left, maybe 50 soldiers and a few kraul. We join back into one large group, and easily dispatch the final remnants. The parking lot coated with ash, we deliberately head to a truck far away from our own, knowing that ours will probably be rigged to explode. I glance back at the hotel, and am glad to see that everybody had the sense to clear out when the fighting started. Five uses his telekinesis to pop the lock, Crayton hot-wires the truck, and we're on the road again. I'm sure the police will be at the hotel soon, but there's no way they could know where we're going.

"To the base?" I ask Crayton in confirmation.

"To the base," he says. "As close as we can get safely, anyway."

We've got a long drive ahead of us, so I figure I might as well entertain myself.

"I didn't know you could fight that well," I say to Five, trying to strike up a conversation.  
>"Alexis always made sure I was proficient in hand-to-hand combat," Five replies, "just in case I couldn't shapeshift for some reason."<p>

"So then why didn't you shapeshift?" I ask. "I was looking forward to seeing it."

"The last time I used it near Elites was back at the house, when I was trying to become a tiger so I could run away quicker. It didn't work though- the Elites absorbed the energy I was expending, and then they started to change shapes themselves."

"That's too bad," I say. "You would make a good tiger."

John glances over at me briefly, then turns back to Sam and rolls his eyes. What's John's problem? He seems to really hate Five or something. Five's started talking with Eight, so I lean back in my seat and close my eyes, just trying to relax…

* * *

><p><em>I dream of memories I have long forgotten. I dream of happier times, of joy and festivity, of beauty and honour, of love and respect. Lorien is as beautiful as I remember, and the sheer abundance of life- plants, animals, the Chimæra and the Loric themselves- is in startling contrast to the Lorien of today. But then everything goes wrong. A ship- a very small one, but clearly of Mogadorian design, appears in the sky overhead. It descends swiftly to the planet, landing squarely in the middle of a park. A tall, muscular man exits from it, making his way towards me. He is clearly not a soldier or scout, but a civilian. His face is obscured in shadow, but something in his mannerisms seems familiar to me. He heads straight for the large building at the edge of the park, the place where the Elders hold their daily meetings. I'm the only one who has seen him land, and I follow him out of curiosity as he pushes open the door of the most important building on Lorien. The Elders are surprised to see him enter, and the one at the head of the table rises to greet the newcomer.<em>

"_What business do you have with the council, Mogadorian?" he asks gruffly. "I thought we had settled all pressing issues involving our peoples in our last diplomatic meeting, not one week ago."_

"_I'm afraid you didn't," the Mogadorian says. "I came here, to Lorien, to give you warning. The armies of Mogadore are preparing an assault on your planet. They will be here within minutes- it was all I could do to beat them here."_

_That pronouncement launches the council into disarray, forcing the one at the head of the table shoot lightning from his hands to restore order._

"_What reason have your brethren to attack?" one of the other Elders, a slim, red-headed woman asks._

"_Mogadore is no longer capable of sustaining life. Lorien is." _

_The reason is implied. The Elders now know the goal of the Mogadorian invasion- the capture of Lorien, and the genocide of the Loric._

"_Why do you tell us this?" another Elder asks._

"_If you lose this battle, Lorien will become another Mogadore, a planet incapable of supporting life. And then Earth, and the innocent people there, will likely become the next target. I do not wish to see innocent people suffer." The Mogadorian looks briefly at his watch. "But we do not have time for this- you must prepare to defend your planet!"_

_There is no arguing, no debating. The Elders take the Mogadorian's words seriously._

"_Creola," the head Elder orders, "tell the people to prepare to defend themselves."_

_A tall, blonde woman nods in response, exiting the building._

"_Should we activate the December Contingency?" a male Elder with stormy-grey hair asks._

_The head Elder nods. "Indeed, Tempus. We have no other choice. Loridas, gather the Ten and their protectors at the airstrip. They must prepare to leave immediately. The rest of you, come with me. It's time we made Pittacus proud."_

* * *

><p>When I open my eyes, the details of my dream are already faded. But what I do remember is earth-shaking. I dreamt of the night of the attack on Lorien, as I often do, but in this dream, the Elders had warning of the impeding attack. And it was given to them… by a Mogadorian? I know that it makes no sense, that it must have been just a dream, but it seemed so vivid, so real, more like a memory than anything else.<p>

The scenery I see through the rear window of the truck is desert- sandy, desolate, barren and lifeless. It is much like what I imagine Mogadore must be like. Seeing this, I can understand more than ever what drove the Mogadorians to attack Lorien; mostly desperation, not malice. But even now as they pursue us across the Earth, they fear. They fear that we will somehow restore Lorien to its glorious state and that they will have nowhere to live.

But does any of this knowledge change how I feel, how I think about the denizens of Mogadore? Not in the slightest. They still attacked my people, still destroyed innocents and still plotted to capture Earth as well. I know that I can never feel sympathy for a Mogadorian. Because in this war, they are my enemy. And understanding their motivations doesn't change that. Nothing could ever change that.

The road we're driving along is bumpy and rough, nothing more than a coloured section of the desert that goes from place to place. So I am surprised when a small settlement suddenly appears near the horizon. Crayton slows down as he approaches it, and I realize that this must be as close as we can get to the Mogadorian base. I strain my eyes, looking off into the distance, but I can see no sign of the base. I can't say I'm surprised- the base in West Virginia was extremely well-hidden as well.

The settlement we've stopped at seems to be more or less a ghost town. A good nine-tenths of the buildings are boarded up, and there's a sign advertising the population of the settlement, named Allawoona, to be 250. Even that figure seems likely to be high.

There's only a single house higher than one story, but it has a beaten-up sign saying 'Rooms Available'. We head towards it, our Chests disguised as our only luggage. Crayton knocks firmly on the door, which buckles slightly under his fist, and it is a full minute before an extremely old-looking woman holding a cane answers it.

"We were hoping you could provide us with room and board for the night," Crayton says briskly.

"Saw the sign, did you?" the woman replies in a heavily accented voice. "I'd nearly forgotten it was still up. Well then," she says, sizing up the group of us, "how many rooms would you be looking for?"

"Three."

"Three?" she says in a shocked voice. "Well now, that won't be cheap. I'm not even sure we have three empty rooms in the first place."

"I assure you, money is no object," Crayton says, pressing a large wad of bills into the woman's hand."

"You're an unusual group, aren't you," she says, quickly counting and pocketing the money. "Don't see many travelers this young in these parts. But do please come in anyways. Your three rooms are the sole ones on the second floor, and dinner will be in half an hour."

We start to trek up a set of rickety-looking stairs, but we're still well within earshot when the woman yells, "Kids! Dinner's for a dozen tonight!"

Me, Marina, Eight and Sarah take the first room on the left, dumping our stuff on the stone floor. There's a single bed in the corner, which we insist Sarah take after all she's been through today. That much settled, we head next door to the guys' room.

"So how does this place compare to the Hyatt?" Nine asks sarcastically as we walk in.

"Crayton sure knows how to pick 'em," Eight replies dryly, leaning casually against the wall.

"Just be glad we found a place to stay at all," Marina says. "To be honest, I'm surprised a town this small has rooms for travelers in the first place, especially when you consider it's in the middle of the desert."

We chat like this for a minute or so before I realize we're forgetting something.  
>"Hey, guys, shouldn't we introduce ourselves?" I say, indicating Sarah, who is standing by the corner of the room, looking just a tad overwhelmed.<p>

"You're right," Five says, his green eyes sparkling slightly as they catch the light. "Here, I'll start. I'm Five," he says to Sarah, "and I'm almost as new here as you are."

Sarah seems to relax slightly as Five speaks, and I suddenly feel more at ease as well.

"I'm number Eight," Eight says next, "and I'm also relatively new here."

"I didn't realize we were doing this by seniority," Nine remarks, "but I guess that makes me next. I'm Nine, and if it weren't for John and Sam I'd still be in a Mogadorian prison."

"I'm number Seven," Marina says, "but my name is Marina. I lived in Spain before I met the others."

"You know me and Sam, of course," John says.

"And that leaves me," I say, "who you know only by reputation. My name is Maren-Elizabeth, but I prefer to go by Six."

"I guess I should introduce myself to you guys as well," Sarah finally says, the trepidation gone from her voice. "My name is Sarah, I'm completely human, but I know about who you guys are and what you're trying to do. I used to live in the same town as John."

Nobody dares to try to make a connection between those two statements.

"You'll formally meet Crayton and Ella soon," Nine says, checking his watch, breaking the awkward silence, "but unless I'm mistaken, dinner should be ready for us by now."

We head back down to the main floor of the house, and find Crayton and Ella already seated at a large, round wooden table. We grab seats as well, and within a few seconds people who must be the old woman's kids are giving bowls of stew to us. The woman joins us at the table, and starts eating immediately. The stew is surprisingly good, and it isn't long before Crayton makes an attempt to strike up conversation.

"So I'm just curious," he says, "but why is it that you still keep rooms to rent? I can't imagine you get many travelers out here."

"I got you, didn't I?" the woman replies. "You'd be surprised how many people come out this way. Idiots, most of them, conspiracy theorists who think there are aliens living in the desert near here, but they pay good money regardless. Say, you aren't here for the aliens too, are you?"

"We're a school group from Canberra, actually," Crayton says. "We're here to study the desert ecosystem of our country."

The woman laughs, a hearty, good-natured laugh that makes the room feel warmer.

"Save your lies for your enemies, Cèpan," she says.


	17. Divide and Conquer

**A/N: We're really starting to enter the home stretch of this story now- there will only be one or two chapters after this one. Just a note on point of views- this one does switch back and forth a little bit, so make sure to keep track. I have nothing else to say here, so I hope you enjoy chapter seventeen. **

**Six:**

Crayton drops his fork in surprise, and the clattering noise it makes only seems to accentuate our shock.

"Don't look so stunned," the woman says. "I wouldn't be a very good Loric ally if I couldn't recognize the Ten, now would I?"

Crayton moves faster than I've ever seen him move before, and suddenly he's holding a long, sharp, black-handled knife at the woman's throat.

"Prove it," he demands.

"If you're going to carry that blade, I could demand the same from you."

"Now."

The woman slowly reaches into her pocket and pulls out an object the size of a marble. It's made mostly of glass, with a tiny blue glimmer of Loralite in its centre. Crayton examines it for a second before giving it back.

"My apologies," Crayton says, returning the knife to his pocket and sitting down.

"So that's why you actually keep this place open," Eight says after a minute or so, breaking the silence.

"Indeed," the woman replies. "Back in the day, before the invasion, there'd be tons of Loric ambassadors staying here at night while conducting negotiations with the Mogadorians. The base is only a half-hour's walk from here, you know."

"Only a half-hour?" Marina says. "Wouldn't they get humans wandering into it by accident?"

"The base is very well hidden. And even if somebody did wander in by pure chance, they wouldn't get the chance to wander back out."

"About that," Crayton begins to disclose, "we're planning to infiltrate the base tomorrow. There's something in there that we need. Do you know anything that might increase our chances of success?"

"Very little. It is rumoured that the base is used as a highly advanced research and development facility. There will be security devices in there that you won't have seen anywhere else."

None of us are sure how to respond to this, so we pass the rest of the meal in silence.

"Get some sleep tonight," is her final advice to us as the bowls are cleared. "You'll need it."

But that advice would prove difficult to follow. I'm used to sleeping in rooms with other people, and to sleeping on floors, even, but tonight, none of that experience would help me sleep. Every time I would feel myself start to relax and drift towards sleep, I would be awakened by the sound of Sarah tossing or turning in the bed. After what must be an hour or so, I take pity on her.

"Can't sleep?" I whisper.

In the dim light from the window I can just make out her shaking her head.

"Is it always like this? Being one of… you?"

It takes me a moment to realize what she means.

"Not always," I say. "But this is our job- fighting, traveling, planning."

Sarah nods. "And somehow I got involved in all of this."

"You can't blame yourself for what happened with your parents," I say. And then, after a carefully considered pause, "Or for that whole thing with the police back in Paradise."

"But it is my fault! If I hadn't gotten involved in the first place…"

I chuckle quietly. "Now that's definitely not your fault. You didn't know when you met him."

Sarah lets a slight smile appear on her face.

"I'm really not cut out for this, you know," she says.

"Trust me. I know."

I must have sounded harsh, because she doesn't respond for a while. I almost think she's fallen asleep (thank God!) when she speaks again.

"You really _do_ need him, don't you."

It's not a question, so I don't answer it. A few minutes later I hear soft snores from the bed, and shortly after that I'm asleep as well.

My sleep is, for once, dreamless.

* * *

><p>Marina shakes me awake before the crack of dawn, saying, "Crayton wants to meet with us to discuss our invasion plan."<p>

"I'll be there in a second," I say blearily, rubbing my eyes and wondering what reason Crayton could have to warrant us meeting so early in the morning.

"So," Crayton says as I walk back downstairs and into the kitchen, where everybody else is, "thanks to the fortunate timing of the development of Marina's master Legacy, I've come up with a plan."

Nine groans. "Please tell me it's not anything like your last one."

"I'm thinking a three-person invasion team," Crayton says, completely ignoring Nine's comment. "No diversional teams, because as we've established that would be too risky."

"So who's going to go then?" Five asks.

"Well we need Six, obviously, to keep the team undetectable," Crayton says. "The problem we had before was that when the invasion team took the pendants, their sudden disappearance would raise an alarm, making the team's escape very difficult. But since Marina can now teleport, the plan becomes simple. As soon as the team picks up the pendants, Marina teleports them out, and it's mission accomplished."

"So you're saying we need to send Marina and Six?" John asks. "Who's the third person, then?"

"I was thinking you, actually," Crayton responds. "You've been inside a Mogadorian base before, so you'll know the general layout."

John looks slightly surprised, but doesn't argue.

"When do you want us to leave?" Marina asks.

"As soon as possible," Crayton says. "Now, preferably."

"You're kidding, right?" John says incredulously. "We don't even know where the base is, never mind how it's hidden or where in it the pendants are being kept."

"If it's a map you're looking for, I got one from the Loric ally last night," Crayton says, tossing a rolled-up piece of paper at John.

John stows it in his pocket without examining it.

"What I mean is," he explains, "we don't have enough information yet. We're taking so many chances here that one of them is bound to cost us."

Crayton sighs. "Haven't we been through this before? We don't have a choice in the matter. Either we go ahead with this plan, or we stay, and scout, and by the time we've finished scouting, the Mogadorians will have caught up to us. And then Setràkus Ra will have us all killed for being trai— in his way!"

John opens his mouth to argue further, but I shoot him a look and he wisely decides against it. Not only would arguing accomplish nothing, but as usual, Crayton's right.

"Give us a few minutes to get ready," I offer diplomatically.

Crayton consents, and the three of us head upstairs. I don't plan to bring much- just the sword I took from a Mog soldier, although I doubt I'll need it. I do, however, pop over to John's room.

"Could I borrow your Xitharis for a second?" I ask. "I was going to charge it as a backup in case we got separated somehow and you needed it."

"Good idea," John says, rummaging quickly through his Chest and tossing the waxy yellow stone at me.

I catch it deftly and hold it to my forehead, concentrating on becoming invisible. I can feel my power flowing into the Xitharis, which has gained a slight glow, and after a couple of seconds I place it into the towel John is holding. He folds it up carefully and places it in his pocket.

John speaks just as I'm about to leave.

"Six."

"What is it?"

"Before we go, I just wanted to ask you something." John hesitates for a moment, seemingly unsure whether to proceed, but in the end he decides to. "Have you been feeling… weird at all, these last couple of days?"

"No…" I say slowly. "I'm feeling pretty good, actually."

A slight flash of frustration crosses John's face.

"How about you?" I ask, worried. "Are _you _feeling okay?"

"Oh yea- I'm fine," he says, turning his back to me to look through his Chest again. "I'll be down in a minute."

I take the hint, reluctantly leaving the room.

'_There's definitely something wrong with John,'_ I think as I walk down the stairs to the kitchen. He's been so distant lately, like something's really bothering him. I wish he'd trust me with whatever it is- I'm sure if he told me I'd be able to help.

I find Marina already downstairs, her dark hair tied back into a ponytail and a slender quiver slung over her shoulder.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" I ask, indicating the quiver.

"They're throwing knives, not arrows," she says, taking one out to show me. "Crayton lent them to me since I'm not that good with a sword."

"Cool," I say. "So, have you learned how to really control your teleportation yet? I mean, no offense, but I wouldn't want to appear inside of a rock or something."

"I think so," she replies. "I was practicing with Crayton last night, and he taught me about some of its limitations. For example, I can only teleport to places I've been before, so that I know the layout of the area and don't materialize inside of something. And the further I want to teleport, the more tiring it is. I could do short hops like the ones I used in the battle yesterday all day without tiring, but trying to teleport more than 10 miles at a time would probably knock me out."

I nod. "We should be fine then."

John comes downstairs at that moment, carrying a sword identical to mine. Now that we're all here, we head outside to the porch to see the others one last time before we leave.

"We should be back relatively soon," I say to them.

"We'll be waiting here," Crayton says.

"Actually, we'll probably be eating while we're waiting, and placing bets on whether you come back alive," Nine says jokingly.

"So long as nobody bets against us," John says, pulling out the map Crayton gave him.

"Don't worry," Five says. "None of us are that stupid."

John mutters something under his breath that I can't quite make out.

"All right, that's enough," Crayton says. "This is just wasting time."

I glance quickly at John and Marina, who are standing on either side of me- they each take one of my hands as I activate my invisibility.

"So which way are we headed?" I ask as we start to walk.

"Do you see that rock over there?" John asks. "The one shaped like a snail?"

The rock in question looks more like a small camel to me, but that's irrelevant.

"Yep- I see it," I say.

"So far as I could tell from the map, the base is between two and three miles in that direction."

"Sounds pretty simple," Marina chimes in.

"There's a catch, though," John replies. "I'm not sure exactly how far it is from here, and since it's hidden, it's possible that we could pass right by it without realizing."

"We can cross that bridge when we come to it," I suggest. "We can run most of the way there, and then slow down and look carefully when we get close."

John and Marina agree, so we set off a reasonably rapid pace in the direction of the oddly shaped rock. After about five minutes or so we come to a stop, barely even breathing hard.

"I think we must be getting close," John says. "How far do you think we've ran?"

"About 2.15 miles," Marina says matter-of-factly.

"That sounds about right," I say, "but how can you be sure?"

"I just am," she replies. "I think it came with my teleportation Legacy- if I'm going to jump from place to place, I have to know how far apart they are."

"That's useful," John remarks. "Let's slow down then and start paying more attention. Marina, if we reach three miles from the house, let me know so we can turn back and look again."

We walk on for another couple of minutes, carefully scouring the sand for any sign of an entrance.

"I think I found it," Marina says, pointing to a circular area that is elevated slightly compared to the rest of the desert.

"Good eyes," John says appreciateively as we walk over to the area Marina indicated, "but now that we've found it, how do you suppose we get inside?"

"I think I know," I say carefully, walking over to what looks like a slight heat shimmer in the centre of the circle. I wave my hand through it and it suddenly solidifies, becoming a metallic lever.

"You know, you can be brilliant sometimes," John says, examining the suddenly solid lever.

He reaches out to pull it, but Marina stops him.

"Wait," she says. "If we activate this, we'll give away our presence here. They'll be expecting somebody invisible, since they didn't see anybody here."

"A good point," I say, "but as Crayton is so fond of mentioning, do we really have a choice?"

Marina shrugs, backing down.

"And besides," John says, slowly pulling the lever, "the challenge is what makes it fun."

The lever reaches the end of its track, making a satisfying thunk. Nothing happens at first. But then the ground is falling away beneath our feet and we're tumbling downward into darkness. We're falling and falling and then suddenly the very air itself is folding around us and we're back in the desert, looking down into a gaping hole.

My enhanced eyes can just make out a field of long metal spikes at the bottom of the pit, causing me to shudder involuntarily.

"Well that was close," John says, shaking his head.

"I think they might be expecting us," Marina comments, rather obviously.

"Ready for another go?" I ask.

Marina nods. "I'll take us down to a spot near the edge, where there aren't any spikes."

Then there's that bizarre folding sensation again and we're at the bottom of the pit, not more than a couple of feet from the nearest spikes. We inch carefully along the wall and push our way through a door at the other end of the room, sneaking invisibly into the main area of the base.

* * *

><p><strong>Eight:<strong>

"So any takers for them being back here in the next fifteen minutes?" Nine asks, waving a five-dollar bill.

"I thought you were kidding when you said that the first time," Five says distantly, flipping through a sports magazine that he bought at the airport.

It's just the three of us Garde here now, plus Crayton, of course, and Sam and Sarah. Four, Six and Seven have been gone for about fifteen or twenty minutes, and the sun is starting to rise, heating the desert sands. I can't wait until they get back- then we can leave this place and go somewhere nice and cool, with proper food and beds.

Sarah seems to be thinking the same thing as she pushes what's left of her breakfast around her plate. It's a shame it wasn't as good as dinner was.

"I'm going to head inside," I announce, although to who I'm not sure. "It's starting to get too hot for me out here."

"It's a desert," Nine says. "What do you want it to do?"

I roll my eyes, stepping inside the relative coolness of the house. I start up the stairs, intending to retrieve a book from my suitcase, when Crayton calls to me suddenly from outside.

"Eight!" he says firmly, his voice carrying easily. "Get back out here, now!"

I reluctantly head back out into the suffocating heat of the desert, and suddenly understand why Crayton was so urgent.

On the horizon, just adjacent to the blinding light of the rising sun, is a thick mass of solid black that's growing larger by the minute. I whirl around to look at the other side of the sky, and see another one there, even bigger than the first. I groan as I realize what this means.

"Nine." Crayton's voice cuts through my thoughts, and I force myself to focus. "Tell Four we're under attack. They need to get back here, _with the pendants_, as soon as possible."

"On it," Nine says, closing his eyes and concentrating.

Things don't look good. We have what by the looks of things are two good-sized bodies of Mogadorians closing in on us from opposite sides, and two of our best fighters aren't here. But then I realize the worst part. If we've been divided into two groups, and one group is under attack, then there's a good chance the others are as well. And they'll be outnumbered even more than we are.

* * *

><p><strong>Six:<strong>

Four curses suddenly, a fearful look appearing on his face.

"What is it?" I whisper.

"It's Nine," he says. "The others are under attack back at the house. They're surrounded, and heavily outnumbered, by the sounds of things."

I scowl. "I had a feeling this was going to happen," I say. "They just waited until they were sure we'd gone, and then they struck. It's simple military tactics- divide and conquer."

All of this is said as we walk invisibly back into what seems to be the main area of the base. So far as I can tell, the base is completely underground, and seems to cover an extremely large area. This main room that we're in is a perfect circle, with a number of metal-lined corridors spaced evenly around the circumference. Mog soldiers run in and out of the tunnels, seemingly randomly. They're probably looking for us, trying to clog up the area to increase the chances of us running into them. We've been careful though, and have managed to avoid detection so far.

We've already looked in the three most-heavily traveled passageways, but all we've found are countless numbers of laboratories where genetic experiments are being held and a handful of shooting ranges where white-coated Mogs fire newly-created weapons.

"Let's try that one next," Marina says, pointing towards a passageway that's directly across the room from us.

We sprint over to it and make our way down its length carefully, making sure not to crash into any Mogs on the way. Unfortunately, this corridor seems identical to the others, filled entirely with laboratories. It is significantly shorter, however, and we come quickly to the jagged stone wall that marks its end.

"I was really hoping it would be this one," Marina says, running her hand along the wall.

"We'll have to go back and try another one," John says hurriedly.

Marina nods, turning to head back. Click. The sudden noise makes us jump, and we realize that the seemingly impregnable stone wall is slowly sinking into the ground.

"You must have triggered something," I say excitedly to Marina.

We wait for the wall to sink completely, and then step over it quickly before it rises again. We quickly charge through the rest of the newly discovered pathway, coming to a halt at its end, where the path expands into a small, square room. There's a pedestal in its centre, which we approach cautiously. They're there- the three pendants, their Loralite shining bright blue as they lie on the top of it.

"Does this seem too easy to anybody else?" Marina asks.

"Of course it's too easy- that's the point," John says. "As soon as we touch the pendants, we'll probably trigger some sort of trap. And since they know we're invisible, it'll be some kind of trap designed to catch invisible people."

"We can teleport out, though," I say, "so the trap shouldn't stop us."

"Sounds good," Marina says, her hand hovering over the pendants. She reaches out and snatches them up, and then everything seems to happen at once. A green gas that I have no doubt is toxic starts to fill the room, hissing from out of view vents. The wall to the left of us slides into the ground, and a squadron of Elites barrels towards us. And a wall suddenly rises up from behind us, cutting off our escape route. All of this would be a real problem for us if the air weren't already folding around us, taking us back to the others.

_And the battle they're fighting, _I think, during the split second we're in transit, neither in the base nor in the desert.

And then we're in the desert's scorching heat, and it doesn't look good. We've appeared on the porch, where the others have gathered. I look out toward the desert and see nothing but the grayish-black of Mogadorians charging towards us. They still seem to be a fair distance away, but the desert is covered- no, filled with them, and I can't help but wonder at how many of them there must be.

"They must have sent another group here from the barracks planet," Crayton says in awe, as if he were reading my thoughts. "I haven't seen this many vat-born in one place since back on Mo…" he trails off suddenly, consumed in thought.

" 'Bout time you showed up," Nine greets us, a silvery-blue submachine gun cradled in his arms. "They'll be here any minute now."

"This looks like it's going to be a fun one," John says, allowing flames to flicker around his body as he shapes them.

I look around the deck, scanning our motley crew- the last hope of Lorien. Five stands by the porch's railing, his tan, muscular arms resting on it as he surveys the oncoming horde. Maybe I'll finally see him shapeshift today. Sarah's next to him, holding a pair of long hunting knives nervously. I hope she'll find the nerve to fight alongside us- and save her own skin as well. Sam's talking to her, probably trying to help her overcome her fear. I've never seen him look more natural- his energized sword at his hip and a pistol holstered by his shoulder. Then there's Nine, the best fighter out of all of us, holding his gun calmly with one hand, twirling his staff with the other. He almost seems to relish the fight that awaits us- but then, he's always been like that. Marina has gravitated to him, a dagger in one hand and a throwing knife in the other as they talk. She seems battle-ready at least- her teleportation should make her a formidable foe for the Mogs to face. Ella walks laps of the deck, carrying a sword that looks far too big for her and breathing heavily. I feel bad for her; being so much younger than us and still carrying so much responsibility. Eight stands on the other side of the porch, looking almost as anxious as Sarah. She seems to be talking to something, although I have no clue what. I worry she might not be powerful enough to hold her own, but there's not much anybody can do about that now. Four stands by the railing like Five does, holding a blazing shield and whip, their fire somehow not burning the wooden porch. Him I have no doubts or fears about. His master Legacy is absurdly powerful, and Elites seem unable to prevent him from taking back the power they absorb. Crayton is in the dead-centre of the porch, his steely eyes studying the enemy. He is a true, battle-hardened soldier, and he's equipped like one, with a rocket launcher slung over one shoulder and a longsword over the other. Below him, in the desert surrounding the porch, are our Chimæra, shifting rapidly from one form to another as if they're unsure which will be most effective. I've always wished I had a Chimæra, but I've never been able to find one that seemed to like me very much. I guess that leaves just me, then, standing next to Crayton, feeling completely useless. I carry a pearly-white sword like the Mogs we're about to fight, but I still feel dreadfully unprepared. My master Legacy will be useless in the upcoming battle because we'll be facing Elites, and sometimes invisibility just gets more confusing than it is useful. I envy the other Garde who have indirect master Legacies- like Marina, who's teleportation the Elites can't use against her.

But I'm still planning on being a force to be reckoned with. I have more battle experience than anybody here, save Crayton, and I can still use my telekinesis to control multiple swords.

I'm starting to think that maybe we'll actually have a chance to win this battle after all, now that we're all here, when Crayton speaks.

"They'll be here in about ninety seconds," he says, trying to keep the emotion he's feeling out of his voice. "Get ready to go out there and meet them. And Marina," he adds, "don't lose those pendants. They're our only chance."

"I just wanted to say," Sarah says suddenly, nearly cutting off Crayton, "before they get here, thank you to all of you for helping me. And for protecting me. I'm very grateful."

"One last thing," Crayton says, not acknowledging Sarah. "If anything happens to me, and some of do you make it through, look inside my briefcase. The combination is 13157. There's information there that you'll need."

The horde of Mogadorians is so close now that I can pick out individual ones, even though they're packed so closely together. Crayton readies his rocket launcher, firing at the front line, and then tossing the empty launcher to the side, drawing his longsword. The explosions vapourize several large chunks of Mogs, buying us just a little more time.

Then suddenly, as if some invisible signal was given, our Chimæra charge towards the solid mass of Mogs, having settled on a shape. A massive leopard that I realize must be Five sprints after them, and that seems to be our cue to attack. We draw our weapons, ready our Legacies, and descend the steps of the porch to the desert below, about to fight the toughest battle of our lives.


	18. The Rise of Nine

**A/N: So this is it. It's just two days now until the much-anticipated release of the real 'Rise of Nine'. This is what you have all been waiting for- the final chapter of my version. It's long, and maybe should have been split, but I decided not to. There's a lot explained and wrapped up here, so I really hope that you enjoy it. And just so you know, I will be writing a sequel. But more on that later.  
><strong>

**Four:**

We charge down the steps, straight at the Mogadorian army, ready to meet the swords of soldiers and Elites alike. Our 'fire support'- Nine, stays up on the steps, firing his sub-machine gun accurately- he is helped by the Loric ally, who blasts anything moving with a beaten-up shotgun.

I sweep my whip in a wide arc, lashing through about five or six soldiers in the front row. The flames catch on them instantly, and they start to spread to nearby soldiers as well. Until, that is, they stop suddenly, having burned through the entire front two rows of Mogs. The flames must have run into a row of Elites- and indeed they have, as I see a few of them holding flaming swords. I focus, drawing the power they've stolen back to me. They stumble in surprise, and I take advantage, cutting through them with ease.

Further down the line, to my left, is a massive leopard that bats away the Mogs like they're its playthings. It's taking blows from swords, but they don't seem to bother it. And even farther away from me is a section of the army that's stumbling around, swinging their swords randomly, and often hitting their brethren in the process. Every once in a while one them turns to ash for no apparent reason, and I smile as I recognize Six's work. I just hope she's being careful- as careful as one can be in a battle, anyway.

On my other side is a tightly packed formation of Garde- Marina and Eight- and Sam and Sarah, all engaging the Mogs the old-fashioned way- in melee. They seem to be having reasonable success, driving the Mog line backwards.

Our Chimæra have spread themselves out after the initial charge, nipping in and out of the battle, catching soldiers unaware.

That leaves Crayton and me responsible for the central third of the army. Crayton is swinging an enormous longsword with brutal force, his blows often cutting through two or three soldiers at a time before losing momentum. I incinerate any that duck under his blade, and between us we keep the Mogs in check easily.

In fact, all of our combined efforts are enough to completely defeat the first wave of attackers. Nine rushes down from the porch to join us, holding his metal pole with both hands.

"Out of ammo," he explains, taking up a position on the left side of the area, by the still invisible Six and the leopard-Five. I pity any Mogs who try to attack from that direction. But the next wave of attackers, which is charging towards us at a ferocious speed, isn't made up of Mogs at all. It's made up entirely of piken and kraul, without a soldier or Elite in sight. And at the very back of the wave, rising easily head and shoulders above the rest of the beasts, is the biggest piken I've ever seen. Despite its size, it moves just as dexterously as its smaller kin, and I sense it will be a ferocious opponent.

"I'll take the big one," Crayton volunteers as the wave reaches us, and swords begin to crash against teeth and claws. He starts to muscle his way through the army, slicing anything that approaches him into bits. I follow behind him, having shaped my whip and shield into a flickering aura of fire- any beasts that try to attack me are turned to ash immediately.

As we start to close in on the massive piken, I hear the telltale boom of thunder from my left- Six's conjured storm seems to be working to great effect. Nine and Five are fighting hand to hand with the piken and kraul, keeping them away from her and giving her room to concentrate. Yet as I watch a kraul sneaks past Five's outstretched paw and launches itself at Nine, who has his back to it, knocking him off-balance into a piken. The piken stumbles, moving backwards suddenly, causing the bolt of lightning Six had aimed at it to miss, impacting instead the space where it had been standing a second ago. The space where Nine was knocked, off-balance, into. The lightning bolt strikes him straight in the chest, and a brilliant bluish-white light consumes his body.

I hear a scream from somewhere- it seems to echo around the battlefield even though there's nothing for it to echo off of. I'm frozen in shock at what's just happened, and only Crayton's efforts keep me from being mauled by the relentless attackers. The leopard-Five staggers backwards under a wave of beasts, now that Nine can't help him fight them. Six's storm dies away, the anger required to fuel it gone, replaced, I'm sure by the horror I'm feeling.

But at that moment, the moment Five is about to be overcome, the moment the beasts will charge at Six and kill her as well, the light that had consumed Nine dies away. And in the space where he had been standing, he is still standing. Electric-blue light courses through his body, giving him a flickering aura much like mine. Somehow, impossibly, he survived the bolt that should have killed him- that would have killed anybody. And I can only think of one explanation.

He extends his hand towards the kraul that are swarming over Five and flicks his fingers outwards- thin lines of lightning leap from his fingers with amazing precision, each one impacting a kraul with a sizzling sound and knocking it off of Five. Then he shapes the electricity running through his body into a similarly coloured spear and leaps at the piken Six's bolt was originally intended for, impaling it squarely in the neck. It disintegrates immediately.

Five gets up slowly upon seeing Nine alive, shaking his massive head and returning to the fray. Six, too, seems rejuvenated, pummeling piken with bolts at an impressive rate.

"Well that was good timing," Crayton grunts, pummeling a kraul with the flat of his blade, bringing my mind back to my part of the battlefield.

"Good timing for what?" I ask, cremating that same kraul.

"For Nine to find out he's a Beacon," Crayton says, continuing to push his way forward.

"A Beacon?" I ask, feeling like an echo.

"His master Legacy."

Crayton doesn't offer a further explanation, and the heat of battle prevents me from asking further.

We've carved our way now directly to the massive piken I saw earlier. It stands flanked by three smaller piken, and a smattering of kraul fills the gaps between them.

"Ready?" Crayton asks, tightening his grip on his sword.

"Ready," I say, forming a whip and shield again out of my flames.

My first lash cuts through all of the kraul, killing them instantly. The piken, however, aren't bothered, and they advance on me. I hold my shield in front of me, waiting for them to approach, and time my shield bash perfectly, setting the lead piken ablaze. It stumbles backwards, crashing into the other two, and the flames catch to them. They fall to the ground, clutching at the flames surrounding their bodies, and I finish them off quickly.

But Crayton seems to be having less success than I did. His swordsmanship is excellent, but every time he blocks the piken's strike and counter-attacks, it leaps nimbly out of the way, and he misses. It's odd, because I've never seen a piken show restraint before- usually they just charge single-mindedly at their target, which makes them easy to defeat.

As I watch, the piken jumps at Crayton, claws extended. Crayton ducks, and the claws whistle just inches above his head. He then thrusts powerfully at the piken, but it sidesteps with impossible quickness and Crayton is thrown off-balance. It takes advantage, kicking him in the chest with an enormous foot, knocking him to the ground. The piken plants the foot firmly on Crayton's chest and raises his arm for the deathblow.

It's all happened so suddenly, and I find myself unable to physically react in any way. But my mind is quicker than my body.

"Stop!" I command telepathically, trying to do something I've only ever done once before.

To my surprise, the command is enough to make the piken hesitate.

"Why should I listen to my enemy?" it replies, it's voice deep and guttural even inside my mind.

"You… you are sentient?" I ask, surprised. The last piken I tried this on wasn't able to communicate with me, and it was only through the images I broadcast to it that I managed to convince it to help me.

"I see I have surprised you," it replies. "I suppose I can't fault you for having never met one like me before. You see, once, all piken were sentient, but those who you call Mogadorians enslaved us, as they were more advanced than us, and bred us to be mindless beasts. Over time, those few sentient piken who survived were killed in battle. I am the last of our once-great species."

"Why do you fight for those who have destroyed your species, then?" I ask, hoping the piken has enough intelligence to understand my logic.

"They are the strongest," it grunts. "They are the strongest, and while they might not treat us well, they keep us alive. Only the strongest can do that."

"I don't think they are the strongest anymore," I say, allowing flames to flicker noticeably around my body.

I summon a ball of flames to my hand and throw it into the sky, where it dissipates rapidly. The piken looks scared, and seems to relax its grip on Crayton ever so slightly.

"You don't like fire, do you?" I ask, picking up on its reaction. "I have fire. Lots and lots of fire. Doesn't that make me the strongest?"

The piken hesitates noticeably, looking from Crayton's panicked eyes to the flames surrounding my body. After a couple of seconds it steps off of Crayton, who sighs in relief.

"You are the strongest," it says, bowing its head to me. "You will protect me and my kin. We will fight for you now, against our oppressors."

"Thank you very much. By the way," I add, "what should I call you now that we're not going to be trying to kill each other?"

"My name," the piken says, "back when I had use for such things, was Valen. I suppose you can call me that."

Then Valen raises its head to the sky and lets loose a howl that I know reaches every corner of the battlefield. I hear it on two levels- as everybody else would hear it, and as how another piken would.

The message for the other piken is: "We no fight for Master anymore. We fight Master!"

And all around the battlefield, I see piken and kraul freeze in battle; walking away from the Garde they were fighting. Thankfully, the other Garde seem to realize that something has changed, and they don't continue their attack.

"What did you just do?" Crayton asks in amazement.

"It turns out I'm a better psychiatrist than I thought," I reply, watching as the piken and kraul start to charge back the way they came, towards what must be another wave of Mogadorian attackers.

"We have to help them," I say, starting to run after them.

Crayton yells something to me that I don't hear, but he catches up with me anyway. The others seem to be following my lead, as they are also chasing after the piken.

As it turns out, the third wave of attackers is made up entirely of Elites- heavily armoured and even more heavily armed. The piken are larger and stronger, but the Elites' equipment will be sure to give them victory. So the ten of us intervene, tipping the scales decidedly. With the help of the piken, we defeat the mass of Elites in a fraction of the time it would have taken us alone. The piken's aggressiveness, however, means that the vast majority of them are killed in the effort- only the few biggest are left, including Valen.

The good news is that there aren't any more attackers in sight. We've drastically over-extended ourselves, though- we must be a good mile from the house, and so we head back there to re-group.

The house is just re-entering sight when I realize something is terribly wrong. I was expecting to see the Loric ally who helped us last night out on the porch, still standing guard with her trusty old shotgun. But instead she lies in a pool of blood on the desert sands, a gaping wound in her abdomen. It's our fault. It's directly my fault, in a way. If I hadn't convinced the piken to help us, and led them in a charge away from the house, we would have stayed close enough that we could have stopped whoever had killed her. But I had no choice but to ally with the piken, to save Crayton's life. At the expense of hers. A life for a life- I guess that's how it works.

The ten of us gather around her body, and although nobody speaks, the expressions on their faces show they feel the same guilt I do.

"It's a risk," Crayton says quietly. "Being a Loric ally, she knew that this could someday happen to her. We can't blame ourselves for not being here at the right time."

Sarah and Eight look shocked that Crayton is being so callous, but the others seem to accept the truth of his words.

Our respectful vigil doesn't last long.

"Doesn't that sight just bring joy to your face?" a firm, deep, male voice asks suddenly from behind us. "I've always thought that humans look far better in death than in life."

We whirl around in surprise to see a tall, clean-shaven man behind us, his military-cut black hair not hiding the tattoos that cover his temples. It is his voice that spoke, and everything about him seems to demand attention and obedience. He holds the dead ally's shotgun loosely in one hand, and is surrounded by a group of civilian Mogadorians, who to my surprise are wielding human-made assault rifles.

The piken growl at his voice, and he chuckles.

"It's good to see you, too," he says to the piken. "You did a very good job today, trapping this Loric filth here for me."

The piken suddenly launch themselves at the group surrounding the tall Mogadorian, but they are reckless- they are shot dead by the group in a matter of seconds, and just like that our only advantage is gone. Valen alone remains, towering over everybody else.

"But you're a good boy," the leader says, looking at Valen, who doesn't move. "You didn't let one of those nasty telepaths talk you into attacking me."

Valen plays possum, bowing his head submissively.

But the lead Mogadorian snaps his fingers anyways and several rounds of bullets take Valen in the head, causing him to slump to the ground.

"I've found that taking risks very rarely pays in war," he says, kicking one of the dead piken with his boot. "And judging from the number of planets I've taken over, I should know. What do you think, Crayton?" he asks suddenly. "How many risks have you taken recently- risks like betraying your god, fleeing your planet, letting your enemies live. That sort of thing."

"None that I regret, General," Crayton says, drawing his sword and descending the steps. I expect him to be shot immediately, but instead the Mogs surrounding the General part, giving Crayton a clear path.

"How about we settle this between ourselves?" Crayton asks, stopping just a couple of paces in front of the General, his sword held loosely by his side. "You and me, one-on-one. Just like old times."

The General snorts. "You never could beat me. So I accept, of course. Since I am a man of honour, my friends will not fire on you until our duel concludes. Assuming, of course, that your friends don't do anything stupid like trying to attack me with those pesky Legacies of theirs."

"Agreed," Crayton says, holding his sword out in front of him. "On one of your men's mark?"

The General draws a sword of his own, a double-edged broadsword with a ruby in its hilt, and then gestures towards one of his lackeys, who drops the shotgun the General had given to him.

The moment it hits the ground, the General attacks, swinging his sword with incredible strength. Crayton blocks it easily and counter-attacks, pushing the General's sword away and slashing with precision. The General takes several steps back, dodging the blows by a hair's breadth and then strikes suddenly, blocking one of Crayton's attacks and following it up with a kick to his chest. Crayton stumbles backwards and the General capitalizes, scoring a slice across Crayton's sword arm.

"You're just prolonging the inevitable, Crayton," the General taunts as Crayton backs away slowly, circling around the General.

Crayton steps forward quickly, lunging his sword towards the General's chest like a fencer, but the General sidesteps and sticks out his foot, tripping Crayton, who tumbles to the ground. Crayton recovers before the General has a chance to strike, but he looks nervous for the first time.

"He can't win this," Six says to me quietly. "The General's going to kill him easily. Look at him- he's just playing with Crayton."

As Six speaks, Crayton tries to launch another offensive, but the General blocks, locking their swords together and displaying tremendous strength, plants his feet and pushes Crayton over. He waits for Crayton to stand up, holding his sword casually over his shoulder.

"What are we going to do?" I ask. "We could kill the General quickly, but then his men would just shoot Crayton."

"Don't try anything," Nine warns us, walking over to join our discussion. "There's no way you can kill all of them fast enough that they won't be able to kill Crayton first. Just let them fight. The General's getting sloppy- he's playing it too much for show. There's a chance he'll make a mistake."

I don't like it, but Nine's right. The General seems to be having so much fun toying with Crayton that it is perfectly possible he'll slip up. At least this way Crayton has a chance.

I turn my attention back to the duel just in time to see the General attack, getting past Crayton's guard and stabbing him in the shoulder. Crayton steps back, holding his free hand to the wound, but the General continues his attack, stabbing him in the other shoulder as well.

"Isn't this pathetic?" the General asks, turning away from Crayton to face us. "Look at us- not twenty-five years ago the two of us were nearly neck-and-neck in training. Now he can barely stay on his feet."

But Crayton is on his feet now, and he jumps at the General's exposed back. The General casually takes a step forward, not even glancing behind him, and Crayton crashes to the ground, his sword quivering, point-down in the sand.

"Oh get up already," the General says with disdain, pushing Crayton's head up with the tip of his sword. "At least I'm giving you the chance of an honourable death- more than a traitor like you deserves."

Crayton gets to his feet slowly, holding his sword warily in front of him.

"You can call me a traitor all you want," he says, "but at least I wasn't blinded by power. Look what he's done to you- now you're just a tool to him, somebody he can use to manage his armies. You don't even think anymore- you just obey. What happened to the man I knew who thought for himself?"

"Enough!' the General snaps, his face turning red. He takes three quick steps towards Crayton and then slashes his sword twice, left-to-right and then back again. Crayton somehow manages to block the first strike, but the second one connects with his left arm just above the elbow, completely severing it from the rest of his body. Crayton drops his sword, holding his only hand to the wound, trying to stop the bleeding, but the General smashes him in the nose with the flat of his sword and Crayton drops to the ground.

Ella screams, a high, piercing scream that seems to fill the entire desert with sound. But there's nothing she can do. Nothing any of us can do, now.

"What's happened to me?" the General asks quietly, standing over Crayton's prone body. "A better question would be, what happened to you?"

Crayton manages to find the strength to speak, and his words are defiant.

"I became a good man," he says. "I became the man you could have become, if you hadn't let him control you. I've done so much good in the last ten years that even if I die today I won't regret my choices. Look around you, General. How much good have you done this last decade?"

"At the end of the day," the General says, "so long as I'm alive, I don't care."

"That's the difference between us," Crayton says. "I found the strength to care about somebody other than myself, and I'll _never _regret that."

The General sighs. "I think I've had enough of this argument." He swings his sword downward in a deadly two-handed arc, piercing Crayton squarely in his heart. Blood flows from the wound like a river, and even from where I'm standing, I can see the light dim from Crayton's eyes as he takes his final breath.

I expect to hear screams, shock, outrage, from the other Garde, but they are silent. Ella has sunk to the floor of the porch, curled in the fetal position, and I see Marina trying to comfort her. But tears drop from her eyes as well. We all feel that same sorrow. I may have only known Crayton for a few short weeks, but he proved that he was indeed a good man. No matter what the General may have implied about his past.

"Goodbye, Crayton," the General says as he pulls his sword out, not bothering to clean the tip. He then stands, directly addressing us, crimson blood still dripping from his sword.

"Look," he says triumphantly, holding his sword aloft, "at what happens to those who defy the might of Mogadore! Traitor's blood flows into these desert sands today, and soon yours shall join it."

Our retribution is quick and decisive. The General is simultaneously struck by several bolts of lighting, torched by a tongue of flame and dive-bombed by an irate falcon. But when the smoke and dust clears, not only is he still standing, but he's laughing, and the tattoos on the sides of his head are glowing a faint blue.

"You really are that stupid," he says in a mock-surprised voice. "Did you _really_ think my Beloved Leader would send me into battle without protection?"

As he speaks the wounds from Five's attack rapidly knit together, erasing the only sign of our attacks having any success.

"Indeed, my Beloved Leader granted me some small portion of his power just before I left for this lovely desert, to ensure that none of your annoying powers could harm me. And in his infinite wisdom, he allowed me to bring his personal defense unit with me. They are exceptionally well trained, and I think you'll find your Legacies to be quite useless against them as well. My Beloved Leader called them his brutes, but I prefer the term… Lorekillers."

As the General speaks the Lorekillers holster their guns and pull out pairs of short swords, which they twirl carelessly as they approach us.

"Have fun," the General says as he turns his back on us, walking away calmly.

He should have known better than to make that mistake twice. Because while he may be immune to Legacies, some of us aren't Loric.

As the General passes by us, still unaware of the danger he's in, Sam, his energized sword held high, races up to the railing of the porch, and in one smooth motion vaults it, leaping towards the General's back. The General was too confident in his victory, and unlike when Crayton tried a similar maneuver; he doesn't realize Sam's behind him. Sam's sword strikes true, slamming into the General's back with such force that it shatters, the blade wedged through the General's ribcage while Sam is left holding the hilt. The red energy, courtesy of Deimos, that lived in the sword has no other place to go but into the General.

The General's body glows a fierce red as a spiderweb of dazzling red light covers his skin for the briefest of moments before the energy overcomes him and he falls dead to the ground. Sam drops the sword's hilt, seemingly in shock, but his pales in comparison to that of the Lorekillers. When they see their General fall, they drop their weapons and flee, even in the absence of pursuit. So much for them being well trained.

With the Lorekillers gone, the sudden appearance of our Chimæra is conspicuous.

"Where were you guys?" I ask Bernie Kosar telepathically.

"Sorry, boss," he says sheepishly, "but when we saw what happened to the piken, we got scared."

"But where did you go?"

"We didn't go anywhere. We just shrunk down to flies, so nobody would notice us. We still saw everything. We're sorry, if it makes any difference."

I sigh. "It's okay. There's nothing you could have done anyway."

There are three dead bodies now in this desert: those of an ally, a protector, and an enemy. There is no doubt that today we have lost much, even though we still live.

We walk down silently to the desert below, circling around Crayton's body much like we did just minutes earlier for another. Marina bends down; about to place a careful hand on Crayton's shoulder, but Nine stops her.

"Don't," he says. "It'll just make it worse."

He's right. It will. As much as we'll have to accept the fact of Crayton's death- his sacrifice- seeing proof that he won't rise again wouldn't help matters.

Ella crouches down beside her dead Cèpan, and I know all too well what thoughts must be running through her head. We've all lost Cèpans now. All ten of us. And it doesn't get any easier to handle death, the more you see of it. If anything, it's harder. And that's why I feel I have to say what I'm going to, even though it won't ease our pain.

"We should find Crayton's briefcase," I say quietly. "Like he told us to."

Ella glares at me, a look that seems unsuited to her young face. But I've been through this before, and the last time I ignored a dead man's final message, it caused a rift between Sam and me. We can't afford to have a rift between any of us now, not with Crayton gone.

"He's right, Ella," Six says calmingly, no doubt thinking of Henri's note as well. "Prolonging it won't make it any easier."

Ella doesn't respond, and I take that as all the permission I need. I leave our circle of mourning and head upstairs to Crayton's room. It doesn't take me long to find the tan leather briefcase, and I take it down to the others, knowing that we should discover its contents together.

When they see me coming, they break the circle, walking up to the porch, grabbing seats around a table. The screeching of the chairs as they move against the deck is the loudest noise I've heard since… well… I try not to think about it.

I place the briefcase carefully on the table, where we can all see it, and turn my attention to the locking mechanism. It's a basic combination lock, with five dials.

"1-3-1-5-7," I say slowly as I turn the dials to their respective numbers.

The briefcase pops open, and we're surprised by what lies inside. Not the elaborate notebook or dossier of files that I was expecting, or even a hidden cache of weapons, but a sleek, silver laptop. A small memory key sits in a pocket next to it, its metallic edge gleaming in the light.

I wordlessly remove the laptop from the bag, power it up, and plug in the memory key.

The key has a long list of files on it, with names such as: Seven, Trueborn, Setràkus Ra and even one labeled Sarah, but I obey the most recently edited one, the one that is named simply, "Read Me First."

We all gather around the laptop's small screen to see what Crayton has left for us.

* * *

><p>To the Garde:<p>

There is a lot you need to know. Because if you are reading these last notes of mine, then I am most certainly dead. For it is only in death that I would dare to allow you to read of what is both my greatest secret and my greatest regret. You may already know it, if the General led the Mogadorian attack today, but I will assume your ignorance. This is the reason I named this document 'Read Me First,' because this secret, as trivial as it was when I lived, becomes vitally important in my death.

In the time I have known all of you, many of you have asked me how I knew so much about Mogadorians, even Setràkus Ra himself. The answer that I never gave you is ever so simple.

Marina. When you first met me, you thought instinctively that I was a Mogadorian. I convinced you otherwise, but your instincts were better than you knew. I think all of you knew, probably, somewhere deep in your collective subconscious. Your conscious minds just refused to accept it, because it seemed so ridiculous to you. But it is and was true, nevertheless.

I was born on the planet Mogadore, to two high-ranking trueborn- our name for what you call 'civilian' Mogadorians. I spent the first thirty-four years of my life there, working my way up the ranks of the military. You see, I was a spy. A very good, very stealthy spy. My assignment was to spy on Lorien, and to relay to Setràkus Ra all information I could gather about the Loric- particularly the Elders.

That's how I know so much about you and your Legacies- because it is your fate to replace the very Elders I spied on.

I did all of this until the night of the invasion. That was the night that the information I had relayed to Setràkus Ra- that three of the Elders were away from Lorien- tipped the scales. He made the decision to invade, and hopefully conquer, your planet.

I was shocked. I knew, of course, of the struggles that our people were facing, but I never dreamed that my people would invade another planet. I shouldn't have been so blind- after all; I had seen the other atrocities of my people. We enslaved the piken, another sentient species that had developed on our planet, and did our best to make them dumb beasts that would fight for us. We developed the vat-born, as mindless as the piken would become, to fight our battles and die our deaths, because there just weren't enough trueborn to go around. We even conquered our own planet, usurping the power of its guardian spirit and keeping it for ourselves, using its power to create a 'Beloved Leader'.

And during all of this, I did and said nothing. I stood by and watched, not powerless, but scared. Scared that if I spoke up, it would be my life that would become forfeit.

But on the night that Setràkus Ra decided to invade Lorien, something inside of me snapped. I decided that I could not allow myself to idly stand by and watch another sentient species be obliterated. Not after the piken. So I commandeered the fastest ship I could find and raced to Lorien, just minutes ahead of the invasion fleet. I acquired an audience with the Elders, and told them about the incoming attack. The seven of them that were there decided to activate the December Contingency, which I would later learn, is what they called the plan involving the ten of you. They took me to the airstrip that you would be departing from, and gave me the role of a Cèpan, the sacred protector, of one of you. Ella, number Ten. They entrusted me with their plan, their ultimate plan, by which Lorien could be saved, and sent us on our way, just seconds before Lorien was conquered. I have been sure to write down and memorize this plan, and it is included on this disk.

But you may be wondering why I have told you all of this. Yes it is the truth, and there is certainly an importance to knowing the truth, but it goes beyond that.

If you follow the plan that I have laid out for you, and I strongly suggest you do, you will be able to build a bomb powerful enough to destroy all life on a planet. And some of you may be sorely tempted, in the ultimate retribution, to drop that bomb on Mogadore itself. But I urge you not to, to use it instead on the planet I have specified, the one where the armies are gathered. It is essential that you do this, for two reasons. The first is that the vast bulk of the armies are on the barracks planet. Bombing Mogadore will not help you win this war. And secondly, and most importantly, the only people on the barracks planet are those who are truly loyal to Setràkus Ra and would not hesitate to die for him. Most of them are vat-born, for that matter, and they hardly live at all. But there are many trueborn on Mogadore still, despite the fact that the planet is barely survivable any more. And those trueborn are not soldiers, they are civilians.

You may not care that they do not fight, for they are Mogadorians, and thus your enemy, but I urge you to care, because there is indeed a difference.

Not all Mogadorians support the regime and goals of Setràkus Ra. There is no doubt that he himself is evil, and deserves to die, as much as we can make that judgment. But you will find that trueborns are like humans, in many ways. And crucially, like humans, some of them are good, and some bad. I have shown to you that good trueborn do in fact exist, so please believe me.

The reason why Setràkus Ra rules unopposed, and these good trueborn do not challenge him, is because of his great power. They are too scared to speak up or take action against him, because his government ensures that those who do die of unfortunate accidents. I know that these good trueborn exist, because I knew many of them. But in the end, I was one of the very few that took a stand for my principles. I only wish I had done it sooner.

Now you know the secret that I never felt confident enough to tell you. I was worried you would judge me, as I know some of you to hold extreme prejudice against Mogadorians. I know I cannot change that, but please keep my words, and my story in mind.

The other files on this drive contain all of the information I have been able to gather that I feel may be helpful. There's a file for each of you, with everything I knew about the Elder you are destined to replace, and I have also included general information pertaining to the Mogadorians, particularly Setràkus Ra. I hope you will find them useful.

I advise you strongly to view the document labeled 'December Contingency' next- the information there is that which the Elders gave me, and it is crucial that you understand it.

Yours, at long last truly,

Crayton

* * *

><p>I've scrolled down the entire document, but I keep my hand on the trackpad nevertheless. We are all silent, trying to piece together Crayton's revelations. Ella- poor Ella- is taking it harder than any of us. Her eyes are glazed over, and she looks shell-shocked. But I can't blame her- not only is she younger than us to begin with, but she's had a pretty tough day. First her Cèpan dies a gruesome death right in front of her, and then she finds out that he's not really a Cèpan after all, but somebody that until today she would have considered an enemy.<p>

The whole thing is just so absurd- if you had asked me yesterday if I thought Crayton was a Mogadorian, I would have laughed in your face. But now, it all makes sense in some twisted way. And I realize that due to Crayton's unique history, he was able to help us in ways no ordinary Cèpan could have. He truly was an exceptional man.

"Should we look at the other document now?" Eight asks, breaking the silence. "The December Contingency one?"

Nine shakes his head. "We don't have time for that now. We need to get out of here, as soon as possible. We might have defeated everything the Mogs could throw at us, but so long as they know where we are, they'll just throw more stuff at us."

"To the airport?" I ask in confirmation.

Nine nods.

"We should all get packing, then," Five says, getting up slowly.

"We need to do something first," Ella says, speaking for the first time since the duel. She looks directly at me, and then at Crayton's body and I realize what she wants.

I walk over to his body, looking at him for the final time. The others are on the porch- some watch, others do not.

I carefully summon a flame to my hand, and then touch it to Crayton's chest, right where he was mortally wounded. The flame catches instantly, and his body burns brightly for a second, and then all that is left is ash. I use my telekinesis to pick it up, and place it in a plastic bag, just in case Ella will ever want it.

I then go to the dead Loric ally and perform the same ritual for her. I use my telekinesis to scatter her ashes across the desert, the wind carrying them everywhere. She would have wanted that, I think.

The body of the General, I leave behind. Let the Mogadorians find him, so they will know what we did to him.

My depressing job done, we trudge up the stairs for what seems like the millionth time, but as we pack, I realize that for the first time in a while, we're packing without Crayton. Having him around for the last few weeks has been a relief for me- I didn't have to make tough decisions or be responsible for the rest of us, like I'm used to. But now that he's gone, that role falls once again to me.

We load our stuff into the truck, and then get in ourselves. There's an awkward moment where we realize that nobody's sitting in the driver's seat. Already we're feeling his absence, in so many ways.

"I'll drive," I mutter quietly as I slide into the seat behind the wheel. Six is riding shotgun beside me, but her attention rests on Five, who is chatting with Eight in the back. I guess there's still some things I'll need to settle in the upcoming days.

But I put them out of my mind for now and start to drive, allowing myself to relax for the first time in a while.

We are nine, now. Me, Five, Six, Marina, Eight, Nine, Ella, Sarah and Sam. It's funny, because we always thought of a different nine. But now One, Two and Three are gone, and Ella, Sarah, and Sam stand in their places.

We are the new Nine, and we have risen from the ashes of the old. We have fought, and one we have lost. But this is our destiny- to fight, to travel, to persevere. Because we are the last hope of a dead planet and an extinct race.

The Mogadorians have killed One, Two and Three. They have killed our Cèpan- all ten of them. And still they hunt us. But today, they have failed, yet again, to kill me.

I am number Four.

And this is my destiny.

-THE END OF BOOK 3-


	19. Acknowledgements

Sorry if this got your hopes up, but these are just my acknowledgements. Information about the sequel can be found on my profile page.

First- to my parents, for all of the support they've given me through these seven and a half months, even when they weren't sure what exactly I was doing.

Second- to BluRay, for her ideas, criticism, and enthusiasm.

Third- to all of you who have taken the time to read this fic, but especially those of you who have reviewed: Go Shapeshifting EIGHT, personfour, ReyRojas, Melanie Martinez, finnick mellark, joeysmithandmarien, sinnercharly, bookworm3399, Lily1986, iamnumberfourlove, Pepperoni Zebra, 9, KittlyAbz, Sketchergal, RayAllenClutch, Lesha11, TRAFALGARLAWSGURL22, SADsasukefan, Pauline xoxo, yashendra2797, danielledoberman, Abz, Neptune, Maren6Elizabeth, Cricket Watson, alicat317, and xX Blue Rain Xx.

Sorry if I missed any of you, but you know who you are. Your constructive criticism, demands for me to write faster, and encouragement are and were greatly appreciated by me- without you I might not have had the motivation to write these last few chapters as quickly as I did.

And finally, to Pittacus Lore, wherever he may be, for writing the first two books in this wonderful series and creating these characters for me to work with.


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